Utah Attorney General Jan Graham persuaded her counterparts in the other 49 states to adopt Thursday a national strategy she wrote seeking zero tolerance of family violence.
"We have got to have a moral mandate as a nation and state to stop the carnage that is going on in one-tenth to one-fourth of our families," she said, noting that 1,000 women a year (about three a day) die in family violence across the nation."No child deserves to live in a violent home," she said.
Graham - one of three attorneys general co-hosting a Domestic Violence Summit this week - persuaded the National Association of Attorneys General to adopt two resolutions she wrote advocating several steps to reduce violence against women and children.
One resolution aimed at governments called for such steps as:
- Recognizing "stay-away" protective orders issued by courts across state lines. "When a woman goes to another state to escape an abusive partner, she deserves our full protection," said Wisconsin Attorney General James Doyle, president of the national association.
- Increasing penalties for men who batter women in front of children. Graham said witnessing such violence sends the message to children that it is acceptable and vastly increases the chance they will be abusers or victims as adults.
- Strengthening laws against stalking, and calling for Congress to reauthorize and fully fund the Violence Against Women Act to help finance state programs.
Another resolution aimed at community groups called for such action as:
- Urging school leaders to offer ongoing education about the wrongness of abuse, solutions and the right of every child to be free of abuse and violence.
- Calling on "every religious leader to take immediate steps to reach out to those living with family violence . . . and to organize ecclesiastical support for healing and rescue for victims." It called for similar action for employers and health-care pro-vid-ers.
To dramatize the need for such steps, Graham introduced to a press conference a survivor of abuse, Becky Farmer, who now heads her office's Domestic Violence Program.
"The truth is that I was married to a terrorist for seven years," Farmer said. "I was beaten, raped, choked, isolated and deprived of food and sleep. Sometimes he would put blanks in guns and fire them at me just to amuse himself."
She said she hid the abuse out of shame and tried to leave but returned when he threatened further violence against her and her children if they did not come back to him. "I didn't ask for help because I didn't know help was available."
She said that once, when she said she wanted a divorce because she could no longer live with the violence, he put a gun against the head of their 9-month old daughter and said he would kill her. "I literally fell at his feet and begged him, `Please don't kill my baby.' "
Farmer said that finally made her seek help, and she tries to help other women now through education and shelter programs.
"We need to educate . . . every victim, perpetrator, children, lawyers, police officers and our neighbors," she said.