Agency helps abuse survivors

Even as an adult, Yuman Rosie Hernandez carries the emotional scars from the sexual abuse she suffered as a child in the foster homes where she grew up.

“It started when I was 5 years old,” Hernandez said as she wiped back tears. “By the time I was 12, I became very rebellious, hateful and ran away a lot.”

But her suffering didn't end there. When she turned 18, she married a man who introduced her to drugs and would regularly physically and emotionally abuse her.

“He was supposed to be my backbone, but it just kept getting worse and worse with him. I tried telling him about my past, but he never understood. When he would get violent with me, he would tell me I deserved everything.”

Hernandez and the man were married for eight years and had three children together. But it wasn't the drugs or the abuse that she experienced that caused her to end their often volatile relationship. It was something much worse.

“He molested our oldest daughter when she was 11 or 12. It is very hard, almost unimaginable to think about. I chose my daughter over him. He was the one to go, not the children.”

While Hernandez says she has been coping with her emotional scars, she has never been able to recover from them completely. Those scars were reopened when her oldest daughter moved in with her and began verbally abusing her.

It wasn't until recently, while attending a domestic violence vigil, that Hernandez realized she could finally get help dealing with the hurt that had been a part of her life for so many years.

“One of the speakers was talking about domestic violence and it hit home. It hit me so hard I cried. It opened up a lot of stuff that I had shut out and forgotten about.”

Estrella Fitch, a former victim services representative with the Yuma County Attorney's Office, recently opened a small nonprofit agency, The Healing Journey, in hopes of improving the lives of survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. It also has group meetings for parents of children who have been molested.

Although Hernandez's husband was convicted for molesting their daughter, he served only three months in jail. Back then, in California where they were living at the time, the punishment for offenses committed against children weren't as severe as they are today.

Having been affected by some of her cases over the years, Fitch said she has realized that even after helping victims get the counseling and other help they may need, the case wasn't over once a sentence was handed down.

“The victim was still a victim. I saw more needed to be done than just finishing the case in court.”

Fitch said she was first approached three years ago by Lorraine Banko, who works for a local behavioral health care agency in Yuma, about forming a new nonprofit agency to provide counseling for survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

Eventually Fitch decided to go ahead with the suggestion, and she and Banko approached the pastor of Champion Church about providing a place for meetings.

“He was very excited and he gave us the space we needed,” Fitch said. “He said he felt it was something the community needed to help heal.”

The agency meets at the church every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., but Fitch said she has plans to start meeting more than once a week due to the number of referrals she is getting.

Now also partnered with Campesinos Sin Fronteras, Fitch said she wants to improve the lives of area residents as much as possible, and to do that her future plans include expanding to offer peer support groups for men who are victims of domestic violence and providing classes on prevention to schools and other community groups. She even hopes to one day to have a therapist on staff to provide individual counseling.

Fitch said she refuses to call her clients victims, instead referring to them as something she says is far more fitting of what they experienced: survivors.

“They survived a horrible crime that was committed against them. They are alive to tell their stories and are able to be real about it.”

Hernandez said she would still be carrying a lot of anger and bitterness inside of her had it not been for The Healing Journey.

“I feel I'm not alone anymore. Our stories are all the same. I've learned not to give up, and that there is always hope. And that there is someone who loves you. It shouldn't hurt to be a strong woman.”

James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbert@yumasun.com or 539-6854.