DoD Launches Public Awareness Campaign Against Domestic Violence

[RAMESES the Great]

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense

No. 168-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb 28, 2006 Media Contact: (703)697-5131
Public/Industry(703)428-0711

DoD Launches Public Awareness Campaign Against Domestic Violence

The Department of Defense, in partnership with the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) is launching a national public awareness campaign to "Take A Stand Against Domestic Violence."

The campaign is designed as an intervention message to educate service Men and women and their families about domestic violence and provide a vital link to life-saving services by connecting them to the hotline.

Educational materials will be distributed at military installations, as well as in key public places in surrounding civilian communities. In addition, this campaign will include public service announcements in military media outlets.

"The Department of Defense is not immune to the broader societal problem of
domestic violence and has a responsibility to act when it occurs," said David
S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. "This
campaign effectively calls to action those in our military population to
assist victims of domestic violence."

Chu said the launch of the campaign is another in a series of initiatives undertaken by the department during the past two years to strengthen its response to domestic violence. DoD has worked closely with the Congress to update and revise key legislation, issued numerous domestic violence policies, engaged in domestic violence coordinated community response demonstration projects, and sponsored numerous domestic violence training conferences for more than 1,000 military and civilian personnel.

The dynamic partnership offers one more option to DoD's broad-based approach to reach the total force and their spouses. The NDVH offers access to domestic violence programs across the United States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Their Hotline provides crisis intervention, information, and referral to victims of domestic violence and their friends and families 24 hours each day, 365 days every year, in more than 140 different languages, with a teletypewriter line available for the disabled. The hotline's phone number is 1(800) 799-SAFE (7233), 1(800) 787-3224 (TTY) and the Web site is: <span
style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">http://www.ndvh.org</span>
[http://www.ndvh.org/] .