Students march through New Brunswick to end domestic violence
Dozens of Rutgers students and New Brunswick residents marched throughout the city on Sunday afternoon to raise awareness of domestic violence.
The march, which was followed by a small rally, is hosted annually by the New Brunswick Domestic Violence Awareness Coalition.
Five of the students leading the march, donning bridal gowns and bruised makeup, were followed by a crowd that chanted and raised signs with various messages for bystanders to read.
The brides signified those who believe that marriage is a license to abuse their partner, said Norka Torres, the chair of the New Brunswick Domestic Violence Awareness Coalition.
“All over the world women … have been beaten on their wedding day,” Torres said. “We try to bring that out, and so they’re dressed so when people look at it, it brings out more attention to the community to learn a little bit about domestic violence awareness.”
Deandrah Cameron, a School of Arts and Sciences junior, was one of the students depicting an abused bride.
“The significance of the institution of marriage, I think, is really important because some people have arranged marriages, some are just thrust into marriage, or you think you know your partner before marriage,” Cameron said. “And so it’s symbolic because you enter into the unknown and this becomes some peoples’ lives.”
Being dressed as an abused bride and representing people who are in domestic violence situations that begin at marriage changes your view of domestic violence, said Lyndra Sahou, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore.
“Just wearing the makeup, being able to go back and take if off is … some people can’t take it off, and that’s the sad part about it,” Sahou said. “I’m just happy that I was out here to represent a great cause like this.”
For the volunteers, being dressed as a bride was fun until they started to put their makeup on, said Olivia Clifford, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore.
“Once they started putting makeup on, that’s when it got real,” she said. “Domestic violence is so much more than we think it is, like it happens so much more often and I just think doing this really just emphasizes the fact that lots of women go through this.”
The flyer passed out the event listed different statistics concerning domestic violence: 31 percent of American women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime, and an estimated 4.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner every year.
Although there were no grooms in the march, it is also important to represent that men suffer from domestic violence as well, Cameron said.
According to the flyer, 15 percent of domestic violence survivors are men.
The march to raise awareness for victims has been held since 2002, giving the Coalition a reputation for thriving and continuing on in New Brunswick even as other coalitions do not last, said Elaine Hewins, the program coordinator for Domestic Violence Education at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital’s Community Health Promotion Program.
The march is a collaborative approach from many different organizations throughout the city, including the New Brunswick Police Department and their Domestic Violence Response Team and various Rutgers student fraternities and sororities.
“Everyone knows a survivor, everybody has it in their family, in their history and their own past,” she said. “It touches everybody … and so if it affects everybody, everybody has to be involved.”
By talking about domestic violence the Coalition wants to reduce shame and spread the message that it is never the fault of the survivor, Hewins said. The march is not to raise money – just awareness.
“We actually had one occasion where a woman in the city was being abused, saw one of the social workers in the crowd, and came running to her weeks later that she had been abused and needed help – she said, ‘I saw you from my window in that march and I know that you care,’” Hewins said.
The slogan of the Coalition is “Domestic violence has no place in our community,” which is the message that the march is trying to convey.
Community events such as the march are also important because it is not on the backs of the survivors to raise awareness, Hawkins said.
If someone knows of someone who is in a situation of domestic abuse, they can help by being supportive and offering help or someone to reach out to for help, she said. The Coalition wants to increase safety and decrease isolation and promote shame resilience.
“You know, we can save so many kids and moms and even seniors’ lives, because domestic violence isn’t only a boyfriend and girlfriend or wife and husband,” Torres said. “It’s the whole family, so we really want to share information and let (survivors) know that we’re here.”
Alexandra DeMatos is a School of Arts and Sciences junior double-majoring in journalism and media studies and women's and gender studies. She is the copy editor of The Daily Targum.
