September 2005
When Home Comes to Work
Domestic violence cases are a painful illustration of the reality that home and the workplace are seldom very far from each other, no matter how long or short the commute might be.
When an employee is victimized by domestic violence, the employer often finds itself at a troubling intersection where concerns about the victim and the company’s larger interests can collide.
More than 1.5 million adults are victims of domestic violence in the United States each year, according to Legal Momentum (formerly the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund), an advocacy and research organization based in New York City.
More than 85 percent of them are women, the organization estimates. (The gender based pronouns used in this story reflect the occurrence patterns of domestic abuse.) Many of those women have jobs. But in an abusive relationship, a job can be another tool of manipulation.
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