Human Trafficking in Pennsylvania? It’s here if you look for it.

By Judy Hale Reed, Intern, WLP Western Pennsylvania Office

In June 2012, the Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission Advisory Committee on Human Trafficking released the results of a two-year study entitled, Human Trafficking in Pennsylvania: Policy Recommendations and Proposed Legislation. The Advisory Committee found that Pennsylvania is a pass-through, source, and destination state for human trafficking. This means that human traffickers move domestic and international victims through the state, people already in Pennsylvania are exploited, and people are brought to Pennsylvania for labor, sex, service, and other exploitation.

Human trafficking is modern slavery, defined by the United Nations and federal U.S. law as the movement of persons for purposes of exploitation involving force, fraud or coercion. The forms of exploitation are almost infinite, from circuit brothels, street prostitution, and sex tourism, to domestic, agricultural, and industrial labor, to begging and petty crimes. Victims are men and women, adults and minors, domestic and international citizens. Many are poor, but some are economically secure and may be well-educated. Most victims are trying to improve their lives, or have fallen into a trap of threats and coercion.

According to the University of Michigan Law School’s Human Trafficking Database, trafficking in Pennsylvania has included  a prostitution ring exploiting female minors and adults; forced labor at nail salons and restaurants; and sex tourism travelers who went to Costa Rica, Romania, and Moldova to have sex with male and female minors. The traffickers in Pennsylvania have been legal husbands, “boyfriends,” and strangers to the victims. These are only the cases that have been prosecuted. Many cases are dropped, and many more victims are never identified.

Human trafficking is a particularly hidden crime, often “hidden in plain sight.” Victims may appear to be workers, but with a closer look they are not paid, not paid what they were promised, and  denied freedom of movement, access to communication with friends and family, medical care, and adequate nutrition while being subjected to forced labor, debt bondage, and physical and mental violence.

The Polaris Project, a national advocacy and policy support organization that helps states develop anti-trafficking legislation, rates Pennsylvania near the bottom of U.S. states. Polaris recommends that Pennsylvania take major steps to improve and implement anti-trafficking laws. The Pennsylvania legislature is beginning that process, by authorizing the Joint State Government Commission Advisory Committee on Human Trafficking to study human trafficking in the Commonwealth. The Advisory Committee report includes extensive legislative recommendations. For the most comprehensive of these bills, click here. In terms of local responses, about 22 of 67 counties in Pennsylvania have organized anti-trafficking efforts, with a response team, an awareness-raising coalition, or both. Many, but not all, of these groups include local law enforcement or FBI agents.

To learn more about human trafficking, visit:

Polaris Project

Polaris Project Online Trainings on almost 50 topics

Department of Defense Combatting Trafficking in Persons

 Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Rescue and Restore Campaign – Look Beneath the Surface

 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – Blue Campaign

PA Superior Court Hears Argument on Insurance Claim of Domestic Violence Arson Victim

By Susan Frietsche, WLP Senior Staff Attorney

Q.: What’s worse than having your house burned down by your abusive spouse?

 A.: Finding out your insurance company won’t cover the damage.

On April 2, 2013, the Women’s Law Project presented oral argument to the Pennsylvania Superior Court in Lynn v. Nationwide Insurance Company, a case of first impression involving the insurance claim of a domestic violence survivor whose abuser intentionally set fire to their house.

At stake is the continued vitality of a 2006 Pennsylvania law (referred to by the Women’s Law Project as the “Innocent Co-Insured Victim Act”) that requires insurers to pay the claims of innocent co-insureds when their property is deliberately destroyed by an abusive partner. This statute was passed after a ten-year lobbying effort by dozens of domestic violence advocacy organizations led by the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Terry Fromson, Managing Attorney of the Women’s Law Project. The passage of the Innocent Co-Insured Victim Act was part of a larger initiative to fight a host of insurance industry practices that disadvantaged or endangered domestic abuse survivors, described here.  The trial judge in the Lynn case misinterpreted this statute to require insurers to pay the property claim of a domestic violence survivor only when the claimant can show that the insurer’s reason for denying coverage was because of discriminatory animus against domestic violence victims—a showing that is virtually impossible to make.

In the Lynn case, a woman drugged her two children, left her husband an angry suicide note, and set fire to the family home with herself and her children inside it. She did not succeed in harming herself or her children, fortunately, but the house was damaged, and the woman is currently incarcerated for these offenses. When her husband filed a claim under their homeowner’s policy, he was turned down, and among the grounds for its denial of the claim, Nationwide cited a clause in their contract that excludes coverage of damage caused by the intentional acts of anyone insured under the policy. As applied here, this intentional act exclusion essentially blamed the victim for the wrongs the abuser committed.

On appeal from the trial court order holding that Nationwide did not have to pay the husband’s claim, an all-female Superior Court panel (Judges Bowes, Donohue, and Mundy), sitting at a special session at the Beaver County Courthouse in western Pennsylvania, heard argument from attorney Gary Davis, representing the appellant Brian Lynn, and from Sue Frietsche of the Women’s Law Project, representing the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and two dozen other Pennsylvania non-profit organizations that serve domestic violence survivors. To read the amicus brief, click here.

If the lower court’s opinion is permitted to stand, the impact on domestic violence victims will be devastating. One of the primary reasons abuse victims cannot get out of violent relationships is economic: they face destitution if they leave. Permitting abusers to leave their victims homeless will make it very difficult for survivors to put their lives back together. It also violates the plain language of the Innocent Co-Insured Victim Act, a statute specifically adopted to avoid this very injustice. The Superior Court may issue its ruling at any time.

U.S Department of Justice Launches Investigation into PA Voter ID Law

Nikki Ditto, WLP Intern

The U.S Department of Justice has begun a formal investigation on the legality of Pennsylvania’s controversial Voter ID Law, which was passed in March of this year. The law, which we have blogged about before, stipulates that voters must show certain approved forms of ID before voting in every election. The law is under investigation by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department for its unequal effect on minority voters in the state.

Carol Aichele, Secretary of the Commonwealth and the chief election official in Pennsylvania, received a three page letter on Monday, July 23^rd from Thomas Perez, the Assistant Attorney General. In the letter, Perez “requested state data on registered voters as well as the state’s list of individuals with driver’s licenses and ID cards.” The Department of Justice has also asked for information about Pennsylvania’s “efforts to educate voters about the new law.” The state has 30 days to compile all the requested information and send it to the Justice Department. 

According to Politico, while it isn’t clear what triggered the Department of Justice’s investigation, the letter does refer to a statement made by Aichele “indicating that 9.2 percent of the state’s 8.2 million voters don’t have a state-issued photo ID.” Pennsylvania has stated that “more than 758,000 voters may be disenfranchised” because they lack a correct form of ID, which also includes passports, military ID, and certain student IDs.

This is the first time the Department of Justice has investigated a state not covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). This section “requires certain states with a history of racial discrimination to have changes to their voting laws pre-cleared.” Two states that fall under this section, Texas and South Carolina, are currently facing opposition from the Department of Justice to their voter ID laws.

The investigation into Pennsylvania’s law falls instead under Section 2 of the VRA, which bars any state from enacting a “voting standard, practice, or procedure that results in the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.”

The law is also being challenged in a lawsuit before the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, and an appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is likely.  While opponents of the law wait to hear whether it will go into effect for the November 2012 election, they are focusing on educating the public and on helping those in need obtain proper IDs in the hopes that such efforts can decrease the law’s harmful effects.

Abington Memorial Hospital and Holy Redeemer: Putting Women’s Health at Risk by Imposing Religious Doctrine on Patients

Amal Bass, WLP Staff Attorney

UPDATE: On Wednesday, July 18, 2012, Abington Health and Holy Redeemer Health Systems announced that they have abandoned their plan to merge.

In late June 2012, Lawrence Merlis, president and CEO of Abington Health System, and Michael Laign, president and CEO of Holy Redeemer Health System announced a joint venture between the two suburban Philadelphia systems with the goal of creating a regional health system by the spring of 2013.  The result will be a partnership between a secular hospital system and a Catholic system, a partnership that will dilute the quality of care women across the region have come to expect from Abington Health’s facilities.  In particular, the partnership will force Abington to stop providing comprehensive reproductive healthcare for women, thereby putting women’s lives at risk.

In 2011, Abington performed 64 abortions, primarily for women with high risk pregnancies that compromised their health.  For women with such high risk pregnancies, abortion can be a life-saving procedure.  For other women, abortion terminates non-viable pregnancies, possibly due to fetal abnormalities or placental problems.  For all women, regardless of the reasons behind needing the procedure, it is a fundamental right protected by the United States Constitution, and it should be a choice that is available at a hospital they trust.

Women who receive their gynecologic and obstetric care from Abington Health, which is one of the largest maternity care providers in the Commonwealth, will have to find abortion services elsewhere.  Hospital officials have not commented on whether Abington will continue to perform selective reduction, a process after infertility treatments where the number of embryos is reduced to increase the woman’s chances of carrying a pregnancy to term, which is typically banned at Catholic hospitals. The hospital claims that it will continue to perform contraceptive services and counseling, such as tubal ligations and vasectomies, which are typically prohibited by Catholic doctrine, but it is unknown if the services could be withdrawn at any time.  

Thus, the full impact of the imposition of Catholic doctrine on Abington’s medical services, if the joint venture goes through, remains to be seen.  Catholic health systems are slowly monopolizing health care across the country.  As of 2011, approximately one-fifth of all hospital admissions in the United States and between 10 and 20 percent of admissions in Pennsylvania are to Catholic hospitals.  These systems impose their religious beliefs, contained in the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” on patients of all backgrounds and faiths, interfering with the medical practitioner-patient relationship.  In 2010, the Catholic Church made its position on women’s health very clear when it excommunicated a nun serving as a hospital administrator for permitting doctors to perform an abortion to save the pregnant women’s life.

The result of this policy in practice could be that women in need of abortion, possibly needed to save their lives, may have a delay in treatment or may require a transfer while they are unstable to a non-Catholic hospital.  Abington may thus become vulnerable to medical malpractice lawsuits and claims for violations of the Federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) for putting religious doctrine before women’s health.  The imposition of Catholic Directives on patient care may cause experienced staff to leave the hospital, and it may also cause patients in the area to seek maternity and other care elsewhere.

Opposition to Abington’s partnership with Holy Redeemer is growing.  Rabbis from congregations in the area have written a letter to Abington’s Lawrence Merlis, protesting the planned joint venture.  A Facebook group, Stop the Abington Hospital Merger, has also formed.

To learn more about the dangers of receiving reproductive health care at Catholic-affiliated hospitals, see the prior posts on this blog, “Patients Are Denied Health Care on Ideological Grounds” and “Nun Excommunicated from Catholic Church for Saving Woman’s Life” and WLP’s 2012 report, Through the Lens of Equality: Eliminating Sex Bias to Improve the Health of Pennsylvania’s Women.

And Then There Were None: Pennsylvania Bill to Permit Expert Testimony in Sexual Assault Cases Lands on the Governor’s Desk

Amal Bass, WLP Staff Attorney

House Bill 1264, which provides for expert testimony in certain criminal proceedings, has passed the Pennsylvania House and Senate, and is now on Governor Corbett’s desk. Until this legislation is signed by the Governor and goes into effect, Pennsylvania remains the only state in the country that does not permit juries in criminal trials to hear expert testimony explaining the dynamics of sexual assault. The bill, sponsored by Representative Cherelle Parker (D-Philadelphia) and 61 representatives from both sides of the aisle, will allow expert testimony in criminal cases involving sexual offenses. This legislation permits the prosecution or the defense to call experts who, because of their “experience with, or specialized training or education in, criminal justice, behavioral sciences or victim services,” can help juries and judges understand “the dynamics of sexual violence, victim responses to sexual violence and the impact of sexual violence on victims during and after being assaulted.”

This legislation will help counter the misconceptions juries and judges have repeatedly applied in the past to sexual assault cases. These misconceptions, known as rape myths, “are attitudes and beliefs that are generally false but are widely and persistently held, and that serve to deny and justify male sexual aggression against women.” Kimberly A. Lonsway & Louise F. Fitzgerald, Rape Myths in Review, 18 Psych. of Women Quarterly 133, 133-134 (1994). These myths are connected to sexist attitudes about women and distort the dynamics of sexual assault.

Two rape myths, for example, are the belief that rape is rare and that women often lie about its occurrence. Other rape myths include the beliefs that sexual assault victims will actively resist their assailants throughout the assault and that they will report the crime as soon as possible.  Adherence to these myths may make jurors and judges more inclined to believe that a victim’s delay in reporting the assault, her lack of visible physical injuries, or perceived inadequate resistance to the attack indicate that she is lying about what happened.

In reality, research shows that many rape victims cannot or do not fight back during an assault for a variety of reasons, including fear, immobilization due to being physically restrained, or immobilization due to their own psychological responses to trauma. Thus, many victims do not have visible physical injuries and do not actively resist their attackers during the assault. Furthermore, a delay in reporting an assault is very common, as victims dealing with the immediate aftermath of an assault are in the process of making sense of what happened to them and are figuring out what steps to take. Contrary to a common misconception, there is no “right” or “normal” way for a victim of sexual assault to behave.

Pennsylvania’s enactment of HB 1264 will promote justice for victims of sexual assault by giving lawyers such as prosecutors the tools they need to address these commonly held misconceptions about the dynamics of sexual assault. To learn more about rape myths in the criminal justice system, see the Women’s Law Project’s amicus brief in Commonwealth v. Claybrook and our chapter on sexual violence in our report, Through the Lens of Equality: Eliminating Sex Bias to Improve the Health of Pennsylvania’s Women.

The Hypocrisy of Cuts to Medicaid Reimbursements for Newborn Care

Amal Bass, WLP Staff Attorney

When Pennsylvania’s politicians say they are for protecting the unborn, they mean it literally: the minute you’re born, you’re on your own.

Last month, Pennsylvania’s Department of Public Welfare (DPW), which is run by Governor Tom Corbett’s political appointees, yanked the rug out from under maternity wards state-wide by eliminating the $1,155 payment it used to make to hospitals for a newborn’s regular care when the mother is on Medical Assistance (Pennsylvania’s name for Medicaid).  DPW will continue to reimburse hospitals for the mother’s care, but it will no longer reimburse hospitals for the baby’s care unless the baby develops complications or needs to stay longer than normal for observation.

Nearly half of all births in Pennsylvania are paid for by Medical Assistance, so the reimbursement cuts will significantly impact hospitals across the state that provide maternity care, forcing them to absorb even more of the cost for the services they provide to pregnant women and their babies. Even prior to these cuts, hospitals typically lost money on Medicaid deliveries. One community hospital reported that every Medical Assistance delivery costs the hospital between $7,800 and $8,400, while the Medicaid reimbursement prior to May 1st was a mere $6,867 for both mother and baby. Now it is just $5,712.

Large hospitals that also serve many privately-insured mothers might be able to spread the loss among other deliveries, or even among other departments in the hospital. However, independent community hospitals that already have trouble breaking even will face greater financial difficulties.  As a result, they may have to close their maternity wards and lay off employees, making it even harder for Pennsylvania’s pregnant women to receive maternity care within a reasonable distance from their homes. Already, as the Women’s Law Project explores in our recent publication, Through the Lens of Equality: Eliminating Sex Bias to Improve the Health of Pennsylvania’s Women, many women in Pennsylvania, particularly if they are poor, have few options when choosing obstetrical providers. For these women, the result of the shrinking number of obstetrical providers that accept Medical Assistance is a delay or a denial in receiving prenatal care, medical care that is important for the health of pregnant women and their babies. DPW’s cuts to hospital reimbursements will only exacerbate an already dire situation for women who receive Medicaid.

DPW’s decision to cut hospital reimbursements for newborn care is another example of how misguided Governor Corbett’s administration is on issues relating to women’s and children’s health.  The governor pressed for controversial legislation that would mandate women undergo medically-unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds prior to receiving abortions, justifying the bill by claiming these women can just “close their eyes,” but his administration will not even use a combination of federal and state funds to pay for the medical assessments and procedures newborn babies need in the crucial first 72 hours after they are born.

If Governor Corbett and DPW truly believed in the sanctity of life, they would promote policies that help women have healthy pregnancies and healthy babies. Their hypocrisy couldn’t be more apparent than in cutting maternity reimbursements for the care of newborn babies.

Federal Court in Pennsylvania to Decide Death Benefits Dispute Involving a Surviving Same-Sex Spouse

A death benefits dispute between a surviving same-sex spouse and the decedent’s parents took center stage on Monday, March 12^th, when U.S. District Court Judge C. Darnell Jones II of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania heard oral arguments from the attorneys for the parties.  This case is being closely watched across the nation because it is the first case in which a private employer has claimed that the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) prohibits it from providing equal benefits to same-sex spouses.  While the principal parties in the case – the surviving spouse, Jennifer Tobits, and the decedents’ parents, David and Joan Farley – both argued that the Court need not address the constitutionality of DOMA to resolve their dispute and instead, only analyze and interpret the language of the pension plan, the potential implications of the Court’s decision are momentous.  If the Court concludes that DOMA applies to the pension plan at issue, the ruling would result in a unprecedented extension of DOMA to private, non-governmental actors and jeopardize the rights of numerous private employees who are married to same-sex spouses and currently entitled to benefits under the private pension plans of countless employers, including small businesses, Fortune 500 companies, and law firms.  Teresa S. Renaker, one of Ms. Tobits’ attorneys, pointed out to the Court that any such application would be a “radical expansion of DOMA’s reach far beyond its intended public-sector scope and into private-sector employment.”

Ms. Tobits legally married Sarah Ellyn Farley in Canada in 2006, a mere two weeks before Ms. Farley was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.  After battling the disease together for four years, Ms. Farley died in 2010 at the age of 37.  After Ms. Farley’s death, Ms. Farley’s parents, who never approved of their daughter’s sexual orientation or her marriage to Ms. Tobits, attempted to collect Ms. Farley’s pension plan proceeds from her employer, Cozen O’Connor, a national law firm where Ms. Farley worked for six years as an attorney in its Chicago, Illinois, office.  Under Cozen O’Connor’s pension plan, a surviving spouse receives a deceased employee’s death benefit and “spouse” is defined in the plan as the person to whom an employee has been married for at least one year.  Nothing in the plan states that same-sex spouses are excluded.  Rather than paying the benefit to Ms. Tobits, Cozen O’Connor instead initiated this lawsuit, claimed that DOMA prevents it from paying the benefit to Ms. Tobits, and asked the Court to decide who is entitled to the benefit.  Because the Court asked the parties to address the constitutionality of DOMA in the context of resolving this dispute, two governmental entities intervened in the case – the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (“BLAG”) of the United States House of Representatives.  The DOJ contends that DOMA is unconstitutional and should be stricken, while BLAG defends DOMA.

Notably, during the pendency of this federal action, an Illinois state court ruled that Ms. Farley and Ms. Tobits were legally married in Canada and that Ms. Tobits is entitled to all of the rights and protections afforded to spouses under Illinois law.  This ruling resulted from a probate action filed by the Farleys after their daughter died in which the Farleys falsely claimed that their daughter was single and asked the court to appoint Ms. Farley’s father as the administrator of his daughter’s estate.  In reaching its decision, the Illinois court rejected the Farleys’ claims and appointed Ms. Tobits, the surviving spouse, as the administrator of Ms. Farley’s estate.

Thank You to our male friends, colleagues, brothers, fathers, and partners for Speaking Up!

Everyone expects to hear women speak up about reproductive health issues–specifically about protecting a woman’s right to control her own body – because women bear the burden  - pun intended –  if no one speaks up.  Women and women’s organizations have been vocal, visible and active in Pennsylvania, outraged by the ridiculous and indefensible HB 1077 that would require women to have an ultrasound 24 hours before having an abortion.   What we did not expect was the gentle, rational, articulate voice of a man from Franklin County, PA, who wrote to his local paper about this bill, chiding the legislators to be honest about their intent:

Pennsylvania HB 1077 is a good example of how controversial legislation can debase the entire system.  I consider myself pro-life. In my idea of a perfect world, abortion and capital punishment are used rarely and nobody dies because he can’t afford the medical treatment needed to keep him alive. If I personally knew someone considering abortion, I would try my damnedest to get her to consider other options.

I also consider myself pro-choice, by which I mean I would not try to keep a woman from having an abortion by calling the cops and having the government force her to have the baby. I have a whole long list of places where the government does not belong, and a womb is on it.

No government in history has ever stopped abortion. The prohibition of abortion works exactly as well as the prohibition of alcohol. Women with money have always had access to clean, safe abortions, and they always will. When we talk about criminalizing abortion, we’re talking about sending poor women to back-alley abortionists and desperate young women to whatever horrifying choices they can make. And sending police after them….

In politics, people get so convinced that what they want to do is righteous, and so frustrated that they can’t get it done, that they will tell any kind of lie and cut any corner to achieve their goal. That includes designing bills that try to dress up their intent in a big pile of fertilizer.

HB 1077 announces its fertilizer tendencies with its name. It’s called the Woman’s Right-To-Know Act, as if there are women out there who have been demanding more information from their abortion doctors but just can’t get answers.

The bill requires women to get an ultrasound at least 24 hours before an abortion. The ultrasound provider must make sure that the screen display faces the woman. Thankfully, it does not require anyone to grab her head and force her to watch. She must get copies of the ultrasound and deliver them to the abortion provider. The doctor must offer her the chance to watch an ultrasound of a similarly-aged fetus. No other medical procedure in this country has similar requirements.

A heartfelt thank you to this man, a teacher, who took the time to write such a thoughtful letter.  The public needs to hear from men as well as women on this issue.  Encourage your brothers, fathers, friends, husbands, partners, and colleagues to speak up and speak out in support of your rights!

Lastly, it was reported today that HB 1077 has been temporarily shelved, but please don’t be fooled by this tactic. In all likelihood the bill will find new life after the Pennsylvania election. So please call your representative in the Pennsylvania House (and have the men in your life call theirs) to oppose HB 1077. This legislation is deceptive, demeaning and offensive.

Other stories on HB 1077:

Pennsylvania House GOP leaders delay bill forcing women seeking abortions to undergo ultrasounds (Patriot News)

PA abortion measure shelved (Tribune-Review)

Yes Virginia, there is a state more demeaning to women than you!

You’ve probably recently heard about the Virginia ultrasound bill, but did you realize Pennsylvania has a bill pending that’s even worse? The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is poised to take up HB1077, the disingenuously titled “Women’s Right to Know Act.”  Are you ready to stop the cruel, demeaning attacks on women in Pennsylvania? Sign the petition and urge your representative to vote NO on HB 1077 and stop this demeaning and unnecessary bill from becoming law in Pennsylvania.  Click here to find your PA Representative.

 Below is a Open Letter Reposted from We’ve Had Enough PA

Dear Virginia, (CC: outraged left wing media)

Your little legislature was wrong. There is a state more demeaning to women than you. Up here across the Mason Dixon line, we’ve managed to come up with a forced ultrasound bill more cruel and medically unnecessary than yours! (It was tough, I’ll be honest.)

If our bill becomes law, women will have to wait at least 24 hours after their ultrasound before an abortion, no matter how far away they live from the provider. And here in Pennsylvania, 113 of the 203 elected state Representatives have signed on to our ultrasound bill. That’s more than your twelve by a long shot! 

Our bill FORCES the doctor to turn the ultrasound screen towards the woman’s face. Don’t worry – we avoided constitutional meddling by “allowing her” to look away. I heard you only give ‘the opportunity’ to view the ultrasound image. LAME! 

LOVE the “free ultrasound providers” bit!  We did that too, so now we can funnel women to those so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” where they can be fed state-funded, unregulated misinformation. We don’t even require that ultrasound providers have any training!

Oh and you’ll love the part about the printouts – listen to this. We’re going to make the woman take TWO printouts with her – one for her scrapbook, and the other one SHE has to bring to the doctor performing the abortion (if she hasn’t been shamed out of it at this point! LOL). 

And come on now, only civil penalties?  Our bill includes civil and criminal penalties for doctors and patients who dare defy our legislating of medicine. 

Nice try, Virginia. But you’ve got nothin’ on Pennsylvania!

Your partner in crime,

 Pennsylvania
Virtue, Liberty and Independence (Unless you’re a woman)

 

Scary News: PA ranks 13th in Nation for Rate at which Men Kill Women

It was just in time for Halloween when PennLive brought us some terrifying news about domestic violence homicide rates in Pennsylvania.

Based on data collected in 2009, the rate of man-on-woman homicide in Pennsylvania is higher than it has been in the fourteen years that the Violence Policy Center has been conducting this study.  Pennsylvania is now the 13^th most dangerous place in the country for women in abusive relationships – a ranking in which we fare worse than any of our neighboring states. 

Of the 102 women killed that year, 58 were wives, girlfriends or ex-lovers, and 85 of them knew their killer, according to the study.  Four were killed by strangers.

This Violence Policy Center study doesn’t analyze causes, so Pennsylvanians are left guessing why our numbers are so grim. 

The recession is an obvious factor:  reports of abuse have been shown to escalate under financial stress, and women in abusive situations have fewer resources to support themselves after leaving their partners.  Domestic violence programs also tend to suffer when the economy is bad, as the government is often less willing to provide funding for such programs and individuals don’t have as much money to donate.  During times of economic trouble, agencies such as Pittsburgh’s Crisis Center North often find themselves struggling to meet an increased need for services on a severely decreased budget.

Violence experts in Pennsylvania warn that the state faces specific risks as a result of conservative attitudes about relationships and inconsistent enforcement of the laws that protect women.  Penn State University professor Cheryl Dellasega comments:

There’s all this attention paid to school and domestic violence in the cities, but there are people isolated in small communities, where prevalent mind-sets are more conservative….[a]nd a lot of times in a rural area you are staying close to family so you have influences on you that are very traditional … about women’s roles, women working.

According to domestic violence educators in Pennsylvania, the state’s laws regarding gun restriction in cases of domestic violence are actually fairly good.  Enforcement, however, has not been particularly successful.  In a state where large differences are seen among counties, and local forces tend to influence courtroom outcomes, judges across Pennsylvania have repeatedly failed to confiscate guns, deny bail, or execute protection-from-abuse orders as the law dictates.  As a result, women have paid with their lives. 

For more information about domestic violence and to find resources, please visit the links below.

 Domestic Violence Resources:

• Domestic Violence Services By County
• Women’s Center and Shelter
• Women In Transition
• Women Against Abuse
•  Thirty-One Things YOU Can Do To Stop Domestic Violence
•  More County-By-County and State Information