Organizations are stepping up to normalize speaking up about domestic violence

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) -Topeka’s YWCA is partnering with different organizations to bring awareness of domestic violence in the community.

“What we know about domestic violence is they are not going to agencies like the center for safety and empowerment first, they are not going to law enforcement first or they are not going to the hospitals first,” said Emily Steimel.

Steimel says they want to normalize speaking out about domestic violence in hopes more people will come forward and seek help from available resources.

“One of the goals of today’s training is to really break the silence around domestic violence so the more that we start talking about it and the more that we empower our community, more conversations we are having in our community about domestic violence, hopefully, victims and survivors of domestic violence feel safe and they feel supported in our community to come forward,” she said.

Shawnee County District Attorney, Mike Kagay says domestic violence numbers in Shawnee County are on the rise.

”In 2019, we filed 836 cases of domestic violence. Last year, that number went up to 938. So the numbers are actually on the rise. Uh, it’s a significant problem here in Shawnee County. But those problems are actually in my estimation under-reported because nationally we know one in seven women has been physically injured by an intimate partner,” he said.

According to KBI, in 2018 Sedgwick County had nearly 8,000 cases of domestic violence, which is more than the combined total of the four other counties in Kansas with more than 100,000 residents--that includes Shawnee, Johnson, Wyandotte, and Douglas county.

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