PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Teri Stoddard
Telephone: 301-801-0608
Email: tstoddard@saveservices.org
White House Dating Violence Proclamation Mocks the Truth, SAVE Charges
WASHINGTON / February 21, 2014 – A leading victim-advocacy group charges a recent White House Proclamation provides a misleading and dishonest portrayal of the dating violence problem. Stop Abusive and Violent Environments calls on the Obama Administration to revise its flawed Proclamation and reaffirm its commitment to evidence-based policies.
February is National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month. In observance of the event, the White House issued a Proclamation on Dating Violence that states, “girls and young women ages 16 to 24 are at the highest risk” for dating violence. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/31/presidential-proclamation-national-teen-dating-violence-awareness-month-
This statement is false. It’s young boys who are at decidedly greater risk, says the Centers for Disease Control. According to the CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey, high school boys were more likely than girls to have experienced dating violence during the past 12 months. This gender disparity was found when the survey was administered in 2007, 2009, and 2011: http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/youthonline/App/Default.aspx
A second CDC-funded study interviewed young adults aged 18 to 28 years. The survey found the sex disparity was even more pronounced in this older group: “women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases,” the researchers concluded: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020
The cases of Jodi Arias of Arizona and Crystal Mangum, notorious false accuser in the Duke U. lacrosse case, reveal that female-perpetrated partner violence is a serious problem in the United States. Both Arias and Mangum were convicted in 2013 for the brutal slayings of their intimate partners.
“President Obama promised his Administration would base its policies on science, not ideology,” notes SAVE spokesperson Sheryle Hutter. “But repeatedly, we have seen White House pronouncements on domestic violence that reveal at best a dubious relationship to truth or verifiable fact.”
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments is a victim-advocacy organization working for evidence-based solutions to domestic violence and sexual assault: www.saveservices.org