If you know someone living in violence...

What You Can Do in the Fight Against Domestic Violence

Sadly, family violence is a very common reality for every community.
Come to understand and recognize the cycle of violence in your own community. Click here.

Learn more about the services and supports out there for women living in violence.

Women living in violence may need someone to talk to. Isolation is a major factor in violent relationships. This is not to say that she expects you to save the day. She might just need someone to listen.

How does one bring up the subject for fear of being considered nosey, snooping, etc.? Something as simple as 'If you ever need to talk, I'm here to listen.' could do wonders for a woman unsure of where to begin.
Certainly, if you think the woman's life, or the lives of her children, are in immediate danger (shouting, things smashing, threats to kill or commit suicide), CALL 911. The potential for you to have been right is sadly great and real.

It takes a community to end violence. Learn more about the supports around you, seek them, get together with others for mutual support.
Challenge jokes about violence - violence isn't funny. Consider a case in Quebec a few years back. A man shot and killed his wife when she had tried to leave him. Looking back, her brother remembers the man joking about 10 years before that if she ever left him, he'd kill her. If we all stopped joking about violence against women, we could help end it.
Keep a close eye to the media. When you hear that 2 people have been found dead and that no third party was involved (often how the police refer to domestic homicide), ask yourself, 'What really happened?' 'What was the relationship between the two 'parties' involved?' These are critical questions that will help our society look at family violence differently.