Avon Cares About More than Makeup

In the United States, every minute, 24 people are abused by their intimate partner. Taking a look at domestic abuse on a global scale, one in three women will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime, with 38% of murders against women being committed by their significant others.

There are several forms of domestic abuse, including both physical and sexual. No matter the type, each focuses on gaining or maintaining power in a relationship, and as evident in the aforementioned statistics, many deaths result from this power struggle. Although many hotlines exist as a lifeline for victims, the Avon Foundation has decided to take an additional step to help both the victims and survivors of domestic abuse across the globe.

On March 20, 2014, Avon’s Global Partnership to End Violence Against Women launched the Gender-Based Violence Emergency Response and Protection Initiative. The program focuses on helping the victims of “extreme forms of gender-based violence” by providing emergency grants for victims’ medical care, legal assistance, emergency shelters and other costs. By doing so, Avon’s initiative is working to help domestic abuse victims access the services they need.

The initiative also acknowledges the ongoing fight domestic abuse survivors face in achieving justice. As an additional facet of the Avon Foundation’s mission, the new initiative has created the Justice Institute on Gender-Based Violence, a training program for both law enforcement officials and non-profit organization advocates. The program hopes to work alongside criminal justice experts in countries across the globe to help ensure that domestic-abuse offenders will be held accountable.

Since 2010, the Avon Foundation has created both public and private partnerships to reduce violence against women. The organization’s work has spanned fifteen countries, and has sought to break cultural barriers in getting victims’ the protection they need.

Brittany Nieves

Sources:  www.cadvny.org  http://opdv.ny.gov  www.huffingtonpost.com  www.avonfoundation.org