WUNRN
College Brides
Walk for Awareness of Domestic & Campus Dating Violence
On her wedding day just hours after this picture was taken Gladys Ricart was murdered by an ex-boyfriend.
A year later Josie
Ashton walked in her own wedding dress to commemorate the death of Gladys and
bring attention to issues of domestic violence. On February 11, 2011 college
students representing various campuses in
What is the purpose of
the College Brides Walk?
The College Brides' Walk was developed in order to bring awareness to the problems of domestic and dating violence on and off college campuses. The latest statistical report from the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence concluded that almost all violent crime is down in the state but domestic violence incidents increased 3.7%. Domestic Violence related murder increases 15.6% from last year and Domestic Violence manslaughter increased 71.4%. Domestic Violence stalking increased 31%, forty percent of all violent crimes were domestic violence-related and one-fifth of all murders were domestic violence-related. These statistics are alarming and have a tremendous impact on our youth.
Josie Ashton, a local activist,
organized the first Brides March after she heard about the brutal murder of
Gladys Ricart, a Dominican woman who was killed by an abusive ex-boyfriend in
front of her family, on her wedding day. After obtaining permission from the
Ricart family to walk in Ricart's memory, Ashton donned her own wedding dress
and walked from the
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