Black Dot Campaign Strives to Help Victims of Domestic Abuse-Truth! & Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
The Black Dot Campaign allows victims of domestic abuse to draw a small black dot on their hand to silently ask for help.
The Truth:
There’s a genuine effort underway to make the Black Dot Campaign a widespread solution to victims of domestic abuse, but that hasn’t happened yet.
An unidentified British woman who was once the victim of domestic abuse started the Black Dot Campaign on Facebook, and it quickly racked up nearly 50,000 “likes” from supporters. According to the group’s community page:
This is a campaign to help the most vulnerable victims of domestic violence. They simply draw a black dot on their hands and agencies, family, friends, community centres, doctors, hospitals can recognise this person needs help but can not ask for it.
While well intentioned, a number of concerns have been raised about the Black Dot Campaign. Because it’s a grass-roots effort, many professional organizations and charities had not received training to identify or respond to black dots on the hands of domestic abuse victims. Black dots could also been seen by the abusers.
Still, the founder of the Black Dot Campaign told the BBC that she started to help victims start a dialogue with friends, family and support staff:
I imagined it as a tool to start face-to-face conversations between friends, or with professionals. I was basing it on my experiences and I was thinking, how could I prompt people to talk about domestic violence? A black dot is easy to make, and easy to erase. As a female, you could go to the toilet, draw one on with mascara, and then later wipe it out. Being in the centre of your palm, you could close your palm and hide it from view.
As a way of seeking help, it’s not going to be a solution for everybody. As a victim, you know what triggers your abuser. So if it’s not safe to draw a black dot, don’t do it. Just because you’re a victim doesn’t mean you’re stupid – you know yourself what is safe and what is not safe.
The Black Dot Campaign is a genuine effort to help victims of domestic abuse seek help, but it’s not currently a widely accepted way to do that.