Tarsha Calloway: Glad to do something with this grief.
Emily Hays Photos
Robyn Porter at Monday’s rally: If it doesn’t seem right, check it out.
Robyn Porter didn’t fully realize that she was in a dangerous relationship until her friend pointed that fact out for her.
On Monday, a domestic violence prevention rally on the Green highlighted just how big of a role friends and family can play in helping their loved ones free themselves from threatening partners.
Roughly 40 people showed up to the downtown event, organized by local healthcare providers and counselors from the HOPE Family Justice Center as a call to action to end domestic violence homicide in the wake of a recent spike in intimate partner violence in New Haven.
“It was hard for me to hear, because I had to accept that I was in trouble,” Porter said on Monday about her own past experience with domestic violence. “I started telling a few people. I want us to be those few people.”
Porter, who represents parts of Newhallville and Hamden in the state House of Representatives, spoke at an event calling for an end to the kind of domestic violence New Haven saw in the recent deaths of Alessia Mesquita and Dwaneia Alexandria Turner.
About one in four women and one in 10 men have faced sexual assault, physical abuse, stalking or another form of intimate partner violence over the course of their lifetimes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As a member of the Connecticut General Assembly, Porter has helped pass laws to protect victims of domestic violence.
At Monday’s rally to end domestic violence, she spoke not as a legislator, but as a domestic violence survivor.
She told her roughly 40-person audience about sneaking out of her home to call her friends, because her abuser had control over her phone. One of her friends, a survivor of domestic violence herself, recognized the late-night calls from phone booths as a sign of intimate partner violence and said so.
The conversation prompted Porter to recognize her situation and make a safety plan for how she would leave the relationship. She felt deep shame and fear but was able to tell a few people about what she was experiencing.
She encouraged those listening to her speech to reach out to their friends and family — as well as their legislators to learn how they can support further legal changes.
“There’s a lot more to do. I’m so tired of these vigils,” Porter said.
More Severe Crises
Yale ER doc Karen Jubanyik: I have seen too many domestic violence homicides.
The Covid-19 pandemic has made already dangerous situations of domestic violence more dangerous.
The calls to the New Haven Police Department related to domestic violence are more severe than before the pandemic, Acting Chief Renee Dominguez said on Monday. Situations of physical abuse have sometimes escalated to choking or other threats to the victim’s life by the time the police department gets called in.
Dominguez told the audience at the rally that this is because victims are more socially isolated during the pandemic. There is no one noticing that the victim has not showed up to work or has not brought their child to school. This is why community members and friends like Porter’s can play such a crucial role, Dominguez said.
Economic independence is another key way to prevent domestic violence. Survivors can have a hard time leaving their relationship if they don’t know where to go or are having trouble finding stable housing. Elm City Communities CEO Karen DuBois-Walton reminded survivors that they can jump to the top of the housing authority’s waitlist. Once receiving a housing voucher or a unit, they can also transfer to another location if they do not feel safe where they are.
The housing authority processes about 150 applications a year from those experiencing domestic violence, DuBois-Walton said.
Like DuBois-Walton and Dominguez, most speakers at the rally focused on the prevalence of domestic violence and the resources available to survivors.
Yale New Haven Hospital emergency physician Karen Jubanyik spoke about how intimate partner violence can affect those in heterosexual and same sex relationships and those from every economic and racial background. Her own family member was abused by a partner with a law degree, and no one else in the family realized.
Hope From Tragedy
HOPE manager Paola Serrecchia: Believe survivors.
HOPE Family Justice Center manager Paola Serrecchia organized the rally after the two back-to-back murders of New Haven women in situations of domestic violence.
She hoped to bring more attention to intimate partner violence to end the shame survivors feel and to encourage those surrounding them to believe them.
Serrecchia embodied that message herself in a conversation with a survivor after the rally. The survivor, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of her abusers finding her, talked about being unable to place a restraining order against someone with no formal familial tie to her. She recently learned that this law has changed to better help people in situations like hers.
This year, another one of the survivor’s exes stalked her and tried to hit her car. She spoke about being terrified but getting no help from the police when she called.
Serrecchia listened and asked the survivor to follow up with her, so they could get a full timeline of events.
“We have to change the laws,” Serrecchia said, nodding.
One law Serrecchia wants to change is to make emotional coercion a crime. Perpetrators often gaslight their victims, making them doubt their reality and lower their self-esteem — before escalating to physical abuse. Catching verbal and emotional abuse is a way to end an already significant trauma and prevent physical violence before it happens.
Some in the audience had experienced partner violence themselves. Some had seen it among coworkers or as children.
Tarsha Calloway: Glad to do something with this grief.
Mothers & Others for Justice executive team member Tarsha Calloway is in the latter category. She saw domestic violence while babysitting for other families as a youth. The adults would tell the children to leave the room, that it was time for the adults to talk. She could hear the physical and verbal abuse going on, but no one ever spoke with her about it. So she started to believe that abuse was normal.
She wished one of the adults had just promised to talk about it later, and she is glad she can be a better role model for her children now.
Calloway passed Alessia Mesquita’s funeral on the way to the rally. She fell silent as she watched the ceremony, struck by how beautiful it was and how the person at the center was no longer alive to witness it.
“I was glad that I was coming here. After seeing that, I could put words into action,” Calloway said.