Sisters in Pain

Summary:

This Peabody Award-winning documentary details the imprisonment and eventual release of 10 women who struck back against the men who violently abused them for years.

Website:

http://weku.fm/sisters.htm

Additional Credits and Funding:

Down to Earth Productions, Louisville, Kentucky, in association with WEKU-FM. Funding provided by the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

Timely on:

October: October - Domestic Violence Month

Tones:

Disturbing, Emotional, Engaging

Language:

English

Description:

When a battered woman resorts to violence against her abuser, is she guilty of a crime? Or do her actions qualify as justifiable self-defense?

In the Peabody Award-winning documentary Sisters in Pain, three formerly battered women share their riveting, intimate and honest stories of abuse, arrest, imprisonment, and, finally, freedom. These women are among the “sisters in pain,” 13 battered women in Kentucky who, in the 1980s and early 1990s, stood up to their brutally abusive husbands and boyfriends, and were subsequently found guilty of violent crimes.

When Kentucky’s Governor Brereton Jones learned of the “sisters in pain” and their stories, he became convinced the women had acted in self-defense. In a controversial move, Jones granted all of the women clemency on his last day in office. This was only the third mass clemency for battered women in U.S. history.

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