By Kathryn Green
As Provo residents turn their minds and their hearts to the victims of domestic violence this month, the department of women”s services will demonstrate their concern through the seminar “Dating and Domestic Violence.”
In today”s seminar, speakers Rachel Hickman and Courtney Merrill plan to identify what dating violence is, warn students what types of things to watch out for, address the cycle of abuse, and give dating tips on how to avoid being in compromising situations.
“There”s a lot of dating that goes on and that”s one of the really big, fun parts about BYU,” Hickman said. “But we need to have our eyes open and we need to be aware that these kind of things can happen even here.”
According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 32 percent of female college students have admitted to having experienced nonsexual dating violence.
Also, 27.5 percent of female college students said they had suffered either rape or attempted rape at least once since age 14. However, only 5 percent of these experiences were reported to police, the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control reported.
Even BYU can”t boast immunity to this problem.
“We think it”s a pretty big problem out here,” said Rick Moreno, Provo police crime prevention officer. “But unfortunately in a religious society cases are hardly ever called in.”
Moreno said most cases are reported to bishops instead of law enforcement because people feel more comfortable talking to their bishops.
“People feel like they should work on their marriages because the problem is something they”re not doing to make it work,” Moreno said. “And in married housing people don”t want to call if they hear something because they don”t want to feel like they”re breaking up a marriage.”
But Hickman said there are a lot of things students can do to reduce the risk of getting into relationships like that.
Warning signs of unhealthy relationships include jealous and possessive dating partners who want to become too intimately involved too fast, Hickman said.
“Abusive partners are people who don”t respect boundaries,” she said.
And neither gender is immune from this problem.
Studies of college students suggest both males and females inflict and receive dating violence in equal proportion, but the motivation for violence by women is often for defensive purposes, according to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
Hickman said she saw this aspect of the issue also.
“Men are more prone to physical violence and women are more prone to relationship violence,” she said.
“BYU campus is our target with this lecture,” Hickman said. “It”s not just for men and not just for women – it applies to everybody.”
The seminar will be at 11:00 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 4, in room 3215 WSC.
