On this particular morning, a young woman is bent over sobbing in the waiting room, her mother's arm around her shoulder. Cabellero, a tiny woman crowned with a cascade of dark curls, has been on the job four years now, and she volunteered four years before she joined the staff. Her agency, formerly known as the Tucson Rape Crisis Center, and the Wingspan Domestic Violence Project will both be beneficiaries of the V-Day fundraiser this weekend. It could be just answering our crisis line, or responding to local emergency rooms. During a one-hour interview her crisis phone will ring three times.
Young women are vulnerable.
At the hospital, Caballero and the agency's other crisis interventionists walk women through assorted medical and police procedures, often spending up to five hours in the emergency room. The victim's power and control has been taken away, and the key is for us to support them as they make decisions. If a person says, 'I want to go home,' that is her decision. Crimes against minors must be reported, but women 18 and over have a choice. Before these programs were in place, it was a grim picture.