Men gather to raise awareness against violence

“Family secrets, fear and old pain” are a few of the core issues that can develop into violence, said 48-year-old Kaimana Apo, a former perpetrator of domestic violence.

Awareness of these issues and learning how to deal with them will help an individual to end the abusive behavior, he said. “I’ve come to peace with my ex-wife, and things are better for me and, I hope, better for her.”

Apo was one of more than 1,000 men and women who participated in Thursday’s 24th annual Men’s March Against Violence 2018 Rally from the state Capitol rotunda to Iolani Palace.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell, along with representatives from the Honolulu Police and Fire departments, the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney, labor unions and domestic violence organizations, joined Apo and other victims and former perpetrators of violence in a show of unity.

“Having men as allies is going to make an enormous difference because we can’t do this alone,” said Domestic Violence Action Center CEO Nanci Kreidman. “This is not a women’s issue. It’s a human issue.”

She said domestic violence can be deadly and cited two incidents that had occurred just this week. On Sunday, a Nanakuli man was killed after the woman who said he had been abusing her fought back and stabbed him, and a man in Salt Lake stabbed a woman then jumped off the 15th floor of a high rise to his death.

Caldwell denounced the behavior of President Donald Trump and some Republican senators toward Christine Blasey Ford, the psychologist and California university professor who alleged that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in 1982.

“You give me hope here in the City and County of Honolulu that we’re going to stand up for women and girls,” Caldwell told participants.

Organizers say each year in Hawaii about 50,000 women between the ages of 18 and 64 are victims of domestic violence. The event brings awareness to this crisis.

Some participants grew up in abusive households, while others were survivors of domestic violence and former abusers.

Pearl City resident Stephen D., who asked his last name not be used, grew up with an abusive father who was a police officer.

“My dad used to get drunk and beat up my mom,” he said. “Witnessing that was pretty traumatic in my life.”

“I got bigger than my father, and I let him know it’s not cool to do that,” he said. “I put him in a chokehold, and he couldn’t get out of it.He got the message.”

His message to abusers: “Just be aware of what you do because it affects others around you. Kids might think it’s OK to beat up your significant other.”

Apo works with his therapist on his addiction and other issues, which he said hurt his family through separation due to treatment and incarceration.

“We’re being grounded and centered correctly,” Apo said. “I don’t have to go over the edge. Once we are aware, we can’t be blind to it anymore. That’s why I’m doing this.”

Wilford Shiprit, 34, said he had uncles who beat their wives and friends who beat their girlfriends.

“I tried to stop them by getting between them,” he said. “It’s important to do something before somebody is hospitalized or dies. Bystanders need to do something before it’s too late.”

Maile, a 53-year-old Aina Haina woman, said she suffered seven years of violent behavior at the hands of her child’s father when she was in her 20s.

She was punched and kicked repeatedly, even punched in the stomach while pregnant, belittled, isolated and threatened.

“It’s hard to get out,” she said, but finally fled with her 3-year-old son, to the mainland, where she raised him for six years.

The rally ended with speeches directed to the men in the crowd.

Domestic violence “is indeed a man’s problem because we are the ones who perpetrate the vast majority of these crimes and of these incidents,” said Kauai County Prosecutor Justin Kollar, recipient of the Distinguished Citizen of the Year award.

“So it is up to us to speak to one another in clear terms, to hold one another accountable when we see bad behavior happening, when we see the comments that are made, when we see the actions that are taken.”

The problem is intergenerational, he said. Whenever his office gets an email for an arrest, “sometimes I see the name and I don’t know if it’s the father, the grandfather or the son because they’re all in the system for the same types of cases.”

For help, contact Catholic Charities Hawaii, 524-HOPE; Domestic Violence Action Center, 531-3771; Mental Health America of Hawaii, mentalhealthhawaii.org; and Parents and Children Together, 847-3285.