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Remembering the victims

Dear Editor:This year during October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the Advocate Safehouse Project is placing at least two names of domestic violence victims who were killed by their perpetrators in our Safe Night ads each week.The Glenwood Springs Post Independent, which sponsors these ads, runs them every Monday for the coming month. Several of the victims are from the Roaring Fork Valley, and you may remember them and remember the way their lives ended tragically. Almost one-half of all murders in Colorado are committed by an intimate or former partner, and the victims were disproportionably female. (Source: Project Safeguard, Fatality Review Project, Denver, Colorado, 2005.)Believe it or not, domestic violence does occur in our hamlet in the mountains. Last year the Advocate Safehouse Project worked with 573 different clients and provided emergency shelter in our safehouse for 51 adult victims and 49 children. There are so many things about this valley that are wonderful, however, being in an abusive relationship is not one of them.If you know someone who is in an abusive relationship, give us a call. If you are in an abusive relationship, give us a call. If you don’t know if your relationship is abusive but feel uncomfortable in it, give us a call.Let us remember all victims of domestic violence, especially those who no longer have a voice. Remember, “Love is not abuse. Abuse is not love.”Julie OlsonExecutive directorAdvocate Safehouse ProjectGlenwood Springs