title:  This Terrified Six-Year Old’s 911 Call Is Heartbreaking (VIDEO)
text: After her step-father began beating her mother, a terrified six-year-old child rushed to the phone to call for help.Through her hysterical sobs, she told the emergency dispatch worker that her  mommy and daddy are having a fight. As the worker tries to get more information, Lisa pleads with her to please send the police.  This has been going on forever and ever,  she sobs. A few moments later the little girl can be heard hysterically screaming at her step-father,  STOP IT! We can t see what s happening, but we can hear the anguish and terror in her voice as she begs the 911 operator to send help. He hurt mommy Can you just send the police please,  she cries.After the operator instructs her to go and unlock the door so the police can get into the house, the little girl returns to the phone.At this points we hear her scream  He just knocked my sister out,  then saying  My little sister. The-four-year-old. There s another scream,  OH MY GOD. He s got the baby. Listen to the heartbreaking call below, via FacesofChildAbuse on YouTube.  The recording, now known as the Lisa Tape, is used by agencies across the country to educate people on the impact that domestic violence on children.After listening to the call, I had to find out what happened to that little girl and her family.I found out that Lisa, her mom and her siblings made it out of the situation alive.Today, Lisa Floyd is an advocate for survivors of domestic violence.Sadly, many domestic violence stories do not have the same kind of happy ending this one does.Every nine seconds another woman living in the United States will be the target of violence from a husband, boyfriend or intimate partner. These attacks result in more than 2 million injuries to women and 1,300 deaths, annually.We know that every year at least 3.3 million children witness domestic violence in their homes.Like Lisa s younger siblings, children who live in homes where domestic violence occurs are as 1,500 times more likely to become the targets of abuse.According to the National Domestic Violence Center, 50 percent of men who engage in violence toward an intimate partner, also abuse their children.Yet sentences for perpetrators of domestic violence remain shamelessly lenient in the United States. For example, the minimum sentence for someone convicted of domestic violence in the state of California is probation. In Florida, it is five days in the county jail. In Louisiana it s four days, at least 48 hours of which must served without the benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence.Even more shocking, the average prison sentence for a man who kills a spouse or intimate partner in the United States is two to six years.Is it any wonder that at least 60 percent of domestic violence perpetrators repeat the violent behavior?When you listen to Lisa s tape and hear the terror in her voice, or when you look at the shocking statistics that show us how many women and children suffer horrible acts of violence at the hands men like Lisa s step-father, and then you compare those things to the consequences that our society considers  reasonable,  it s nothing less than shameful.Domestic violence remains the leading cause of injury to women in the United States. It s also the number cause of homelessness for women in children in the United States.Those statistics aren t going to change until we stop letting the perpetrators off the hook with a slap on the wrist.*image credit: wikimedia commons 