'I was stranded in a strange community'
GNWT recognizes Family Violence Awareness Week
Randi Beers
Northern News Services
Published Friday, October 10, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
It was a plane ticket back home, purchased by a man she barely knew, which helped her escape from her first abusive relationship.
Mira Hall, program director at the Centre for Northern Families, shares her experiences with domestic abuse at the opening ceremony for Family Violence Awareness Week at the Salvation Army Monday night. The department of Health and Social Services, in partnership with the Coalition Against Family Violence, is launching an educational campaign this week to teach people what they can do if they witness family violence. - Randi Beers/NNSL photo |
Mira Hall told a crowd of 40 people at the launch of Family Violence Awareness Week at the Salvation Army Monday night that after graduating high school, she moved to Portage la Prairie, Man., with her high school sweetheart. It was there, in an apartment which she shared with her boyfriend and two of his friends, Hall said the abuse started.
"At first he didn't want me to go out and meet people, then he took my bank card and I didn't have my own phone," she said.
"I was stranded in a strange community and the only people who had interaction with me were his two friends. Things were pretty grim."
But then one of her roommates showed up one day and slipped her a one-way ticket to Yellowknife. He later told her he decided to intervene after overhearing the couple having a particularly violent fight in their bedroom.
"All I knew was after I heard your head go through that drywall, I had to do something," she remembered him saying to her.
Hall's story is the embodiment of a new campaign the Department of Health and Social Services launched this week in a partnership with the NWT Coalition Against Family Violence. The campaign, called What Will It Take?, aims to teach people ways they can intervene if they witness family violence.
The department offers advice for anybody who witnesses family violence, which ranges from simply calling the RCMP to approaching the person suspected of being victimized to see if they need any help.
Hall ended her presentation with a story about the pain and embarrassment she felt watching an entire room of people ignore her while being attacked by an ex-boyfriend.
After coming back to Yellowknife, she was working at a coffee shop when a man she had recently broken up with decided to pay her a visit.
She said he showed up at her work, "screamed obscenities" at her and chased her around the half-full shop. She finally hid in the kitchen and braced herself against the door until he got tired and gave up.
"Not one person said stop, not one person asked, 'Hey, what's going on', what I did see was people looking down at their coffees," she said.
"I was shaking, I was crying, I was horribly embarrassed, I asked to finish my shift in the kitchen that day because I didn't want to see anybody."
Hall told the room she wanted to spread the message that not doing anything about domestic violence is tantamount to signaling it's OK.
Premier Bob McLeod spoke at the ceremony as well, echoing Hall's message.
"It is difficult to talk about family violence but if we remain silent, we are condoning that violence and allowing it to continue," he said.
According to a 2013 Statistics Canada survey, rates of domestic violence in the Northwest Territories are four times the national average.
The Coalition Against Family Violence organized events for this week. This year the group hosted Take Back the Night, a rally against sexual violence at Somba K'e Civic Plaza on Thursday and gave out $1,000 grants to organizations across the territory to host events to spread awareness about family violence.
