Ten-year-old Angela Carbajal looks up at her homemade sign while marching across Sherman Avenue.
In painted pink and blue block letters bordered by colored pieces of foil, it reads, “Stop the Violence.”
Angela thinks a lot about violence these days.
“All this tragedy that’s going on, it’s just bad,” Angela said. “Violence just isn’t a good thing at all.”
On Wednesday night, she marched with about 50 other Evanston residents and Northwestern students in the YWCA’s second annual Walk Against Violence and candlelight vigil as part of the YWCA’s seventh annual Week Against Violence Campaign. The vigil was held at the First Bank and Trust of Evanston, 820 Church St.
The number of people who attended the march was down from last year’s count of 100, bolstering YWCA’s concern that domestic violence and other social concerns have diminished in the American consciousness since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
According to YWCA spokeswoman Katiti Crawford, organizers also were concerned about the timing of the march in light of the attacks.
But although the theme of the day was preventing violence against women and children, coordinators feel that the weeklong campaign against violence is even more relevant today than it was last year.
“We feel this march cannot be more timely,” Crawford said. “You have to start small. This is a public health issue. It’s connected to our global issues — and that’s timely.”
YWCA Executive Director Christie Dailey said the events of Sept. 11 made clear the threat of random, senseless violence.
“Now imagine the constant threat of random violence from someone in your home,” Dailey said.
Dailey quoted statistics from the Family Violence Prevention Fund, including the possibility that as many as 3 million incidents of domestic violence occur each year. According to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund survey, 31 percent of American women report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives.
“There are 50 people here tonight,” Dailey said. “So that’s what, 10 of us? Twenty?”
About 1,320 women were killed by their intimate partners in 2000, according to the Department of Justice.
“We should be outraged,” Dailey said. “We want the violence in our own homes to end.”
One of the speakers at the vigil was a woman named Rhonda, who left a three-year relationship last year. She said the toll of mental and emotional abuse caused her to worry about the safety of her two daughters, ages 10 and 4.
“Something needed to change,” Rhonda said. “My life depended on it. It’s scary when you look back. But I’m standing here today.
“My children needed to be safe,” she said. “I prayed to God and asked for direction.
“You come to a point when you are ready to make a decision to be empowered and be in control,” she said.
Angela Johnson, an Education senior, assists women like Rhonda as a crisis-line counselor at the YWCA-sponsored Evanston shelter for women and children. She said she thinks other NU students would benefit from working at the shelter.
“Training was one of the most incredible programs I’ve ever done,” she said. “My job is not to tell them to leave — it’s to make sure they know they have options.”
For 10-year-old Angela, who participates in the YWCA’s Destiny Girls program, the statistics on violence against women will only get worse as she grows older. According to the Department of Education, an estimated 4,000 incidents of rape or other types of sexual assault occurred in public schools across the country during the 1996-97 school year.
According to 1997 and 1999 studies, published in the August 2001 Journal of the American Medical Association, approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner.
But right now, Angela said she is focused on the aftermath of Sept. 11.
“I think about anthrax,” Angela said. “We do current events every day in school. … I worry about my mother and father and brothers and sisters being killed.”
