Violence in Paradise

It was a regular Sunday morning. I was sitting in the back row of my church with a few friends, barely listening to the introductions of the early morning service. I was having a perfectly good time catching up with my friends from this week when something the pastor says caught my attention and cut short our conversation. Just the day before in the city of Kaneohe, the same city in which this church is located, a man stabbed his girlfriend, assaulted her mother, and then committed suicide by jumping off the H-3. The pastor said a bit more about the tragedy, said a prayer, and then moved on with the service. I was taken aback that something so awful happened in the same place that I go to church, hang out with my close friends, and have so many happy memories. Later that same day as I talk with a friend the same subject comes up. He talks about how this event happened in his same neighborhood, not far from the place where he lives, the very home that he grew up in. Just think about it, a man stabbed his girlfriend to death out on a street that my friend has walked down and then this guy jumps to his death off of the same freeway that my friend can see from his house. And this all happened only a couple of months ago. This is a perfect example of how real domestic violence is. It is not just something that is added into movies to make them more dramatic and it isn't a rare occurrence that only happens in places far from anywhere you are. It's happening all around us and most of the time we probably don't even notice. Domestic violence is a real issue even in the islands of Hawai`i, this place we call "paradise."

Although some may say that domestic violence is "not their problem" and it is an issue that should be taken care of by the police department, I believe that everyone can do their part in raising more awareness about how fatal domestic violence can really be. The more awareness we raise about domestic violence the more our government will have to pay attention to our pleas for better funded facilities designed to shelter abused peoples as well as educate and protect our children for a better, violence-free future.

In Hippensteele's essay on Domestic Violence in the book "The Value of Hawaii" she states, "Since 1997 there have been seventy-three domestic violence homicides in the state." (134). And in 2010 alone seven out of the eighteen murders so far this year are characterized as acts of domestic violence. On top of that since 1996 filings for domestic Abuse Protective Orders with Hawai`i Family Courts have doubled in 2009 (135). It has also been proven that even more domestic acts of violence go on unreported. This should give you just a small idea of how big this issue is in our home state of Hawai`i.

Not only is domestic violence potentially fatal for adult women in abusive relationships, but it affects the children around them as well. "Approximately