The FACTS about Domestic Violence

Domestic violence and child abuse have reached epidemic proportions in the United States. The numbers and the costs of domestic violence against women are staggering.

• Every 9 seconds in the US a woman is assaulted or beaten.
• One in Three women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime
• Domestic violence victims lose nearly 8 million days of paid work per year
  in the US alone—the equivalent of 32,000 full-time jobs.
• The costs of intimate partner violence in the US alone exceed $5.8 billion per year:
  $4.1 billion are for direct medical and health care services, while productivity losses
  account for nearly $1.8 billion.

Children too are suffering from a hidden epidemic of child abuse and neglect.
Over 3 million reports of child abuse are made every year in the United States.

• A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds
• Almost five children die every day as a result of child abuse and
  approximately 80% are under the age of 4
• More than 90% of juvenile sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator
  in some way
• Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines,
  within all religions and at all levels of education
• About 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for
  at least one psychological disorder
• The estimated annual cost of child abuse and neglect in the United States
  for 2007 is $104 billion

For many survivors, the experience often results in the development of years of emotional and psychological complications.