ISSUES2008

DANVERS - Jessica Hollander was raped at age 16 while on a date with a boy she trusted as her best friend.

The incident left her stunned, violated and misunderstood by her high school classmates, some who did not share her sense of outrage. "I felt totally betrayed," Hollander told a receptive audience Thursday at North Shore Community College during a conference on teen dating violence, sponsored by the office of Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett.

Hollander has wrestled with the emotional trauma and made awareness of teen violence the central focus of her life, working for a Boston-based organization, Casa Myrna Vasquez, that helps victims of abuse, and lecturing on the subject to whoever will listen - teenagers, schoolteachers, social workers, healthcare experts, guidance counselors and law enforcement officers.

"I knew if it could happen to me it was happening to others," she said, an epiphany that became all too evident as she scoured the statistics.

A recent survey by the Boulder Valley School District found that 1 in 5 high school girls reported having been forced to have sexual intercourse in a dating relationship, a 20-percent rate that parallels the national average. According to Hollander, 1 in 3 girls in Massachusetts, or 33 percent, will experience teen dating violence before high school graduation.

"People find it a very uncomfortable subject so it doesn't get talked about, but the dialogue has started again," she said, noting only 3 percent of high school girls reported sexual abuse to the authorities, while 61 percent told only friends. Another 30 percent kept silent.

"Statistics are important, but they are abstract. They are only numbers," she said. "The stories are important."

The conference featured two videos produced by Liz Claiborne, Inc., the women's clothier, that demonstrated through interviews with survivors how teen dating violence can occur. The girls on screen talked candidly about how friends abandoned them during their hour of need, admonishing them for contacting the police. They were forced to hide or seek protection, change schools and social circles, and literally start new lives.

The stories had a common thread, an abusive relationship in which the girls were degraded and controlled. They were coerced into wearing certain types of clothing or hairstyles that pleased the abuser, boys who constantly monitored their whereabouts through emails, cell phone calls, beepers and text messaging. There was a price to pay for not keeping in touch as ordered.

In at least one case where the violence was more psychological than physical, the girl's friends suggested she make nothing of it, and the victim herself did not recognize the situation as abusive. She assumed a loud daily argument was normal, based on Hollywood versions of perfectly passionate relationships and the typical behavior in many homes.

Hollander blames the media and a complacent society for not taking teen dating violence seriously. As she put it, the most romantic story of all time is Romeo & Juliet, teenagers forbidden by their parents to date, with the resultant violence. Her point: Teens forced to keep secret their relationship are far less likely to report abuse should it occur.

"These teens are often disconnected from supportive adult relationships," she said, stressing the need for parents to pay attention, listen, look for warning signs, and express concern about certain behaviors but not criticize the teenager.

The warning signs can range from anxiety and an evident fear of not remaining in touch with the abuser to lackluster academic performance, mood swings, isolation, weight loss, eating disorders, vanishing friends and attempted suicide.

"There's a lot of victim blaming in our society," said Hollander. "People ask, 'if she's being abused, why does she stay?' But it's not that simple."

Blaming the victim isn't healthy or productive. Besides, abuse comes in many forms - physical, verbal, mental, sexual, cultural.

"Abuse is a pattern of behavior one person uses to control another," said Hollander, explaining how abusers often isolate their victims, which makes it more difficult to break away.

According to Hollander, physical abuse isn't always punching or kicking. It can be driving a car so fast it scares the victim, or locking the person in a room. Mental abuse can involve acts like spreading rumors and trying to ruin the victim's reputation on popular Internet sites such as FaceBook or MySpace.

"Some victims are constantly checking in on cell phones or pagers. You'll hear them say, 'I have to text message them back.' Through technology, we have constant access to each other, and that can be controlling," Hollander said.

Another form of abuse occurs when the victim's religious beliefs or cultural identity are used as a way to gain control. The abuser threatens to tell the victim's parents they are having sex unless they cooperate and obey.

Societal values and language also play a role. The terms "hooking up" and "talking to" often suggest two teenagers are dating, while label words such as dating or relationship are seldom heard. As a result, the relationship is deprived of rules or clear definition, opening the door to abuse.

LYNN - Two local stores - Enjoy Liquor at 53 Union St., and 7-Eleven at 3 Lynnfield St. - will begin serving seven-day suspensions of their tobacco licenses on March 11 for selling tobacco products to minors during a compliance check.

Joyce Redford, director of the North Shore Tobacco Control Program said the compliance checks took place Feb. 19, 20 and 21, in which a total of eight stores were fined for not checking identification before selling tobacco to minors.

Of the eight stores, Redford said only Enjoy Liquor and 7-Eleven were suspended for second offenses and were each issued $200 fines.

Union News on Union Street, Lucky 7 Market and Lynn Liquor Mart on Boston Street, D&M on Commercial St., Del Pueblo Market in Market Square, and 7-Eleven on Essex Street were all fined as first offenses and issued $100 tickets.

"These stores should all be very accustomed to checking identification," Redford said. "This was also done on a week when school kids were on vacation, so you'd think that the stores would have a heightened awareness."

Mary Ann O'Connor, director of the Lynn Health Department said in addition to the monetary fines issued to stores for illegally selling tobacco products, a new law was adopted roughly one year ago to suspend the stores' permits for the second, third and fourth offense.

"The regulations were revised and stores will have to serve a 30-day suspension for a third offense including a $300 fine, and six months for a fourth offense and a $300 fine," she said. "However, if the store hasn't had a fine in a 24-month period, they are back to square one."

Overall, Redford said Lynn has a 98 percent compliance rate, which is relatively good for the size of the city.

"We'd of course like to have it be 100 percent, but this check was slightly better than the last one," she said. "I don't think the clerks are intentionally selling to kids, but 16 and 17 year olds certainly don't look like they are 21."

Redford said clerks are required under state law to request identification for any person under the age of 27, and for the sale of alcohol, anyone under the age of 30.

Sometimes however, she said a person's age is difficult to judge, so quarterly training sessions are offered to clerks to gain the skills they need to make a proper sale.

"Someone that's 27 most likely doesn't have acne or isn't wearing a baseball hat to the side...those are typically age indicators," she said. "But quite frankly, the older I get, the less I can tell the difference between a 16, 17, or 18 year old."