City Councillor At-Large Ayanna Pressley issued a statement Friday, days after an elected official and the Boston Public Schools superintendent became enmeshed in controversies stemming from bad judgment and domestic violence issues. In her statement, Pressley alluded to the incidents, but sought to focus on domestic violence prevention.

The statement is available below in full.

PRESSLEY STATEMENT : Preventing Domestic Violence Must be our Priority and Focus

Domestic violence is once again at the forefront of everyone’s consciousness because of recent stories involving public officials. The sad reality is that women and men experience domestic violence every single minute of every single hour of every single day. Nationally, every 9 seconds a woman is victimized. That means 67,200 women will become victims this week.

Nearly 1 in 3 women and 1 in 5 men in Massachusetts have experienced rape, physical violence and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lives. We rarely hear about these incidents and most are never reported or go to court. Yet they are also serious, real, and complex. These women and men deserve all of our attention and advocacy year round.

What is clear to me is that the work to end intimate partner violence, build healthy relationships and foster peace cannot be achieved without a true community-wide effort. We need a sustained level of focus on intimate partner violence and promoting healthy relationships, from elected officials, the public and the media. Our humanity and decency, and not headlines or tragedy, should be the only impetus we need to end violence.

#####