Earlier this month, a wrenching tragedy on the Far North Side was met with predictable calls for more of the same tough-on-crime policies that have repeatedly failed survivors of gender-based violence.
A 5-year-old child watched a man critically wound his mother and fatally stab his 11-year-old brother in his Edgewater home, a place where he was supposed to feel safe. The person charged with the stabbings was not an unknown intruder but someone his mother had previously dated. This family belongs to a community, and the unbearably horrific harm they experienced is community violence.
Unfortunately, because the killing occurred in their home and in the context of gender-based violence, it will be relegated to a different, lesser category. It will be spoken of, in many spheres, as a private matter, a broken relationship, a “domestic dispute.” When domestic violence leads to lethal harm, the victim becomes the one who “slipped through the cracks,” cast as an anomaly in a system that is portrayed as generally functioning fine.
Already, the state’s attorney has alluded to “gaps in the justice system” that would “allow for a dangerous offender to commit the acts that he did.” This framing continues to isolate survivors, to cast the harm they suffer in an individualized light instead of as a systemic problem that requires the entire community, the entire city, to come together to solve.
This heartbreaking violence must be viewed in the context of a larger spate of community violence recently rocking the Far North Side. Public officials have spoken of ramping up “community safety” responses, including increased policing and violence interrupters. But domestic violence has not yet figured into these conversations. It’s likely this unspeakable tragedy will fuel some promises in the coming days. But whether they will translate into increased safety for our communities depends on all of us.
There is no shortage of possible solutions to address gender-based violence. Survivors are imaginative and intrepid and know what they need to achieve safety. To interrupt cycles of generational violence, survivors across the city for the last five years have led Sex Ed Works, a citywide campaign to ensure Chicago Public Schools students and their families receive education about consent and healthy relationships that can literally save their lives. They’ve proposed peer-to-peer programs in which survivors not only share their stories but also serve as critical access points for other survivors to connect to resources and build a community of support.
In such a model, survivors — who, through the abuse they’ve experienced, are often isolated — can develop multiple entry points to build communities that could ultimately help them leave a violent situation or build other tools to create more safety.
But because survivors’ problems are not seen as “community issues,” they are treated like an afterthought, their experiences and needs minimized. Comprehensive sexual health education and caregiver education around gender-based violence are key violence-prevention tools, yet they’ve received only minimal CPS funding. While violence interrupter programs are well funded, parallel peer-to-peer models for survivors do not receive the same public resources.
In fact, gender-based violence organizations are desperately working to convince the city to continue the funding streams that barely keep the lights on for shelters, legal aid and crisis hotlines. Meanwhile, the city has no plan for sustaining already inadequate levels of funding for gender-based violence support after federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan have run out.
The portion of the city budget that is heavily funded — and is often cited when questions arise about resources for survivors — is the budget for the Chicago Police Department. However, gender-based violence activists have long pleaded with the city to fund services for survivors outside the bounds of the Police Department, since police often put survivors at risk. For example, survivors who defend themselves during an instance of gender-based violence often end up criminalized themselves. And police-perpetrated sexual violence is well documented.
At the same time, community-based groups that are well equipped to support survivors in building safety networks, connect with resources and develop advocacy skills are chronically underfunded.
This systemic de-prioritization of survivors’ needs is only possible because they are seen as disposable. For this, we are all accountable — for wanting to believe each instance was an isolated tragedy. For frantically seeking reassurance that a stabbing in our neighborhood was just a domestic dispute. For leaving survivors out of our conversations about community violence.
But we all pay a price. Gun violence, youth violence, neighborhood violence and gang violence all partly stem from the isolation, shame and profound despair of domestic violence. There is no trauma more fundamental than witnessing harm at home — the very place where safety is paramount — the place where you first learn what love means.
Safety starts at home, and it’s time to invest in survivors — including survivor-led, peer-based models of support — to ensure the safety of our communities.
Sheerine Alemzadeh is a co-founder and co-director of Healing to Action, a Chicago nonprofit that works with survivors of gender-based violence. She is a Chicago Public Schools parent living in the Rogers Park neighborhood.
