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2015
Feb 10

FILED IN: Special Holidays

Love Shouldn’t Hurt

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February 14th is Valentine’s Day, a day when traditionally we show our loved ones how much we care.  We buy flowers and chocolates, go out for romantic dinners or watch romantic movies and celebrate love to the best of our abilities.

For women caught in violent and abusive relationships however, love does not always mean romance, chocolates and roses.  There is a darker side of Valentine’s Day, where love hurts.

Figures from the Staffordshire police force show that “consistently, over the past three years, more acts of violence or abuse are committed in the home in the weeks around Valentine’s Day than in January. In the 20-day period between January 8 and January 28, there were 291 domestic incidents in 2011, 257 in 2012 and 263 in 2013.”

Reeva Steenkamp, the model and law graduate shot and killed by Oscar Pistorius, was statistically just one of three women killed on Valentine’s Day by an intimate partner, according to a study on violence against women that damns South Africa as having “the highest rate ever reported in research anywhere in the world.”

Police and domestic violence experts in the US have said that holidays can sometimes bring out the worst in partners and that violence increases during holiday periods which are also times of stress and disagreement. Valentine’s Day is no exception.

This Valentine’s Day, love shouldn’t hurt.

Read more: www.stokessentinel.co.uk
Read more: www.cbsnews.com
Read more: www.thestar.com

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