In
1996 23% of Australian women reported experiencing domestic violence
= 1.1 million women. In 1999 the Australian RSPCA investigated 10,700
cruelty complaints.
Research in the
US indicates that 88% of victims of sexual or physical domestic violence
had a partner who also abused the family pet or killed it.
ANIMAL
ABUSE IS A WARNING SIGN
“Abusive
men frequently use pets to manipulate women’s emotions, beating, shooting,
disemboweling, strangling or drowning an animal if the woman tries to
leave. These abusers make women watch as they kill the animal...saying,
in effect, “This is what I can do, and there is nothing you can do to
stop me. You may be next.”
from On
the Issues - The Progressive Woman’s Quarterly
the
link between animal abuse & domestic violence
