PHA-Exchange> KWRU stands trial for defending domestic violence victims

[SAULELYDIS at aol.com]

KWRU members to be tried for protest for domestic violence victims

On March 1st, ironically the first day of Women's History Month, and a week 
before International Women's Day, preliminary hearings will be held to decide 
on the following case. We put a call out to the health movement, the women's 
movement, to human rights advocates, to the legal community and to all people 
concerned for the lives of women and children, and for the fate of our rights to 
protest WHEN OUR LIVES ARE AT STAKE, to support us. Please send in letters of 
support. 

February 6, 2004:

Dozens of KWRU members today protested in front of the offices of the Office 
of Emergency Social Services (OESS) in Philadelphia demanding emergency safe 
shelter for seven women who are currently fleeing domestic violence, and their 
children. 

In Philadelphia, there are only 50 beds in anonymous battered women's 
shelters, and so women trying to escape violence are placed in public, unprotected 
shelters, putting them, their children and all of the shelter residents and 
staff at risk of assault by abusive partners. In addition, shelters frequently 
insist on families being divided, and in particular women with several children 
are denied shelter for themselves and their children. 

The seven women and their children and other members of KWRU, as well as 
members of ADAPT, demonstrated today to demand that the city of Philadelphia take 
responsibility for saving the lives of endangered women and their families, by 
providing temporary safe shelter at either hidden safehouses or motels. 

The situation is an urgent one, indeed one of life and death: 

Just two days ago, one of the homeless KWRU mothers was hospitalized, 
because, unable to find emergency safe housing for herself and her six children, she 
returned to an abusive household. 
Another of the women is being threatened with having her children removed by 
DHS because she cannot secure safe housing or shelter. 
These women and their families have applied numerous times to the city for 
emergency housing, and have already been homeless for several months. Just 
before Christmas, KWRU members were arrested at City Hall protesting for housing 
for these women and their children. Cheri Honkala, herself a domestic violence 
victim, and some of the other women were charged with misdemeanors in the third 
degree (the heaviest penalty before a felony), and given stay-away orders 
from City Hall. Why are women being criminalized and banned from government 
buildings for trying to get themselves and their children out of potentially deadly 
situations?