WHILE MANY families are adjusting to a more isolated lifestyle during the nation’s various stay-at-home orders, those who are dealing with domestic violence situations find themselves under major duress. Despite potentially having a daily respite from an abuser when one or both individuals in the household left for work, many survivors are locked down with their abusers, which can create a dangerous situation.

Another complication comes in the form of states releasing inmates from jail, which adds another layer of fear and stress for those whose abusers are being sent home.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and leaders of domestic violence shelters and safe houses are reminding everyone that the current environment can be a very scary reality for those who are living in fear of their abusers.

“Our local law enforcement calls regarding domestic violence have been up since the quarantine,” said Lashley Moser, sexual assault prevention coordinator at EVE Inc., a domestic violence and sexual assault shelter in Marietta, Ohio. “We would get a lot of phone calls for people requesting shelter while the spouse was at work, or while they were at work, when they had that time to call us. It’s extremely worrisome that they’re not able to get out of the house to go to work, or their abuser may not be going to work … and someone who may be in that situation cannot reach out to us.”

She added that with children not attending school, more violence could be happening during the time they are home with their abusers.

“It’s extremely scary,” Moser said. “If someone’s in immediate danger, we always recommend calling 9-1-1.”

She added that even though life might be different now, EVE’s services are always available and they can make arrangements to ensure someone’s safety if he or she needs it.

Moser said EVE Inc. has been following the lead of the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, which is currently running a campaign called #embraceyourvoiceohio. Using that hashtag, EVE Inc., the Ohio Alliance and others throughout the state are encouraging people to visit their Facebook pages and participate in daily activities and conversations that surround sexual violence awareness and prevention.

The shelter had been planning a host of activities to highlight Sexual Assault Awareness Month, but the organization had to shift its focus to social media gatherings rather than in-person events.

EVE Inc. had planned a live exhibit called “What were you wearing?” which was set to feature representations of the clothing each survivor was wearing when they were assaulted. That exhibit was going to be on display in the local municipal courthouse, but instead, Moser took pictures of it and it is now available to view on the EVE Inc. Facebook page.

She also posted it on other websites for which she felt it would be relevant.

Moser went on to explain that “What were you wearing?” is “basically a visual representation of recreated outfits that survivors were wearing when an assault happened. And that ranges anywhere from a 3-year-old’s nightgown to a military outfit, a boy’s outfit, so that people could visually see that what someone was wearing doesn’t matter when an assault happens — that it can literally happen to anybody across the board.”

She said the exhibit is more powerful than just numbers.

“I think actually seeing these outfits is more of an eye-opener than just posting a statistic,” Moser said. “Because this is kind of personalizing it.”

The identity of the survivors was kept confidential, but each outfit is accompanied by a statement from the survivor who had been wearing it when he or she was sexually assaulted.

“So, it really gets the survivors’ voices out there as well,” Moser said.

Moser got the idea from Ohio University, which did a similar project at its Eastern campus west of St. Clairsville. She hopes that once things open back up, she might be able to display the exhibit in person in the future.

“Unfortunately, statistics do show that assaults usually happen with someone you know,” Moser said, adding that survivors say things like, “I thought he was my friend,” or “This was my family.”

In Alpena, Michigan, Hope Shores Alliance is using social media to reach out to the public during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The domestic violence shelter has been posting on its Facebook page daily, encouraging participation in activities such as wearing teal — the color of sexual assault awareness and prevention — to support awareness, posting photos of pets wearing teal, and much more.

“It’s really been a struggle for us this year trying to find ways to engage with the community,” said Valerie Williams, executive director of Hope Shores Alliance. “We used to go to every city council or township or county meeting in a five-county area, and talk about sexual assault awareness and have a proclamation signed, and usually mayors and leaders would read it, we would get a photo, and we usually would hold a candlelight vigil.”

She said getting creative this year has been the theme, not only in an effort to increase awareness online, but also in finding ways to communicate with survivors who are isolated at home with their abusers.

Williams then added that isolation is one of the manipulative tactics abusers use to exert power and control over those they are abusing.

“Any time that people are isolated, we have to think about what they’re losing access to,” Williams said.

She explained that with the stay-at-home orders in place, “Survivors and victims of domestic and sexual violence are being told and asked to, you know, hunker down and stay in one place and leave the house minimally, for their own safety. But what’s happening is they’re actually being forced, or strongly urged, to stay in an environment that has not been safe for them.”

The theme of this year’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month is “I Ask,” Williams said, so Hope Shores Alliance is focusing on empowering people to put consent into practice. Consent, she added in a press release, is a “normal and necessary part of sex.”

Each week on its Facebook page, Hope Shores Alliance has been releasing videos and content that define consent, explain how consent is a skill, and that you get better as you practice asking for consent, as well as explaining digital consent.

Nearly one in five women in the United States have experienced rape or attempted rape at one time in their lives, and one in 67 American men have experienced rape or attempted rape, a press release from Hope Shores Alliance noted.

The alliance worked with more than 100 survivors of sexual assault, and responded to more than 20 Sexual Assault Response Team calls in 2019. Overall, sexual assault services at Hope Shores Alliance were up 43 percent from last year.

“Survivors are survivors because they have learned how to survive,” Williams said. “They’re creative, whole, resourceful people that usually end up teaching a lot of people around them a lesson or two about resiliency.”

April 29 is denim day, and Hope Shores Alliance encourages everyone to “wear jeans with a purpose, support survivors, and educate yourself and others about all forms of sexual violence.”

Also on everybody’s minds is the release of prison inmates, which Williams noted is concerning, because abusers may not be out wreaking havoc publicly, but they are dangerous to the inhabitants of their own homes.

“Even with no-contact orders in place, there is potential that an abuser will be returning to their original home, if not their original community, so that risk of violence goes up,” Williams said.

These are misdemeanor charges a lot of the time, she said, so usually the abusers are locked up for a somewhat short time, but “there’s nothing scarier than … all of a sudden having the rug ripped out from beneath you.”

She said Hope Shores Alliance is working with local law enforcement officials and talking with officials at the state level to see what can be done about changing the stipulations around who the State of Michigan is releasing from jail or prison.

Williams noted that abusers “are always strategic. They’re always looking for opportunities to maintain power and control, whatever that means.”

Will Averill, director of communications for Willow Domestic Violence Center in Lawrence, Kansas, explained that abusers use many tactics to manipulate their victims.

“Isolation is fundamentally one of the main tactics of abusers, even before this situation,” Averill said. “Removing people from their support networks — their family, their friends, their workplace colleagues — gives them less people to talk to and less people to get assistance from.”

Willow Domestic Violence Center serves Douglas, Jefferson and Franklin counties. The center serves men, women, transgender and non-binary individuals, Averill noted.

“We’ve certainly received an uptick in calls regarding information” about the center, Averill said, since the stay-at-home orders have been in place. “It has not significantly affected our actual service numbers yet.”

He expects existing cases to worsen, rather than new cases to surface.

“It will definitely exacerbate existing cases,” Averill said of the isolation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to isolation, abusers use other tactics to exert power and control, such as controlling finances, eavesdropping on phone calls, and limiting access to the Internet.

“It just makes all of this easier [for the abuser] because the access is right there, and there’s no place for the survivor to go,” Averill said.

Anyone needing help in the Lawrence area should call the 24-hour hotline at 1-800-770-3333 or 785-843-3333, or message Willow Domestic Violence Center on Facebook.

Averill added that the center is working in partnership with the Sexual Trauma and Abuse Care Center in Lawrence to increase awareness through social media throughout the month of April.

“If people are concerned about people that they know, it is an incredibly important time to reach out and connect with people, whether it’s via online, or Facebook, or over the phone,” Averill said. “That’s kind of the main lifeline that we’ve got right now.”