&20081,7< THE CORD :DWHUORR 5HJLRQ’V LQGHSHQGHQWPRQWKO\ • 9RO ,VVXH • 1RYHPEHU , • FRPPXQLW\.WKHFRUG.FD $UWV &XOWXUH 1HZV 85%$1 (;3/25,1* The best soup to beat the cold Page 6 A buse is one othe worst things a person can do to another per- son. What can be equally bad is witnessing that abuse and not doing anything about it. It is not uncommon for most people to look the other way. “Silence is a major fac- tor,” said Carolyn Albrecht, senior director ooperations at the Women’s Crisis Services oWaterloo Region. “When people see their neighbours in these situations, they are more likely to be like ‘that’s kind otheir own busi- ness. We really shouldn’t get involved.’ That is the attitude toward abuse. People feel dis- comfort. It isn’t an easy thing to talk about.” Another major factor is that no one ever thinks this is going to happen to them, so when it does, it comes as a surprise. “Well what made it hard for me to get out othat situation was the fact that it didn’t happen very oten,” explained Ashley (who asked that her last name be omitted), a for- mer Wilfrid Laurier University student. “It was mostly emotional and verbal abuse. It only happened a few times physically, so it was easier to make excuses. Plus he had a way oturning the tables and making it partly or entirely my fault. So sometimes I really thought and believed I was in the wrong. And ocourse I loved him.” Statistics show that Ashley’s story is not unusual. In 2011, Waterloo Regional Police reported over 6,000 domestic dispute calls to the Ministry oCommunity Safety and Cor- rectional Services and also responded to one domestic dispute call every 1.5 hours. One othe most chilling facts is that since 1995, there have been 16 intimate partner homi- cides in Waterloo Region. “Unfortunately, because othe silence it is really hard to get statistics on unreported cases. The only figures we can really get are LAUREN WARD NEWS EDITOR Continued on page 5 >> THE DEAFENING SILENCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN K W RIM Park’s legacy, ten years on Page 4 K-W gets geeky with two fests Page 9 Graphic by Kate Turner Visual Designer
