Domestic violence affects all people from all strata of life, regardless of their social, economic or racial backgrounds.

That was a recurring theme at yesterday's domestic violence conference sponsored by The Queen's Medical Center and the Domestic Violence Action Center, formerly known as the Domestic Violence Clearinghouse and Legal Hotline.

"This happens in every socio-economic group," said Dr. Diane Thompson, medical director of Queen's Women's Health Center. "It's not just women who are lower socio-economic status. It's everyone."

Women from middle- and upper-income families sometimes may have their own circumstances that make it difficult for them to leave their abusive situations.

"She may be faced with, for the first time, huge financial concerns that she may never have had before, as well as all the emotional issues," Thompson said.

For whatever reason, there's a wrong assumption that domestic violence only occurs among lower-income families.

"They (upper-income victims) aren't as easily identified," said Stephanie Thomson, nurse manager of the Queen's telemetry unit.

"The reason we have domestic violence in our society is because we have men in our society who think it's OK to hurt somebody else."

Those in the medical and social services communities need to be better educated that domestic violence cases do not come from the same mold, Thompson said.

"We all need to recognize that "every person who comes into a medical setting should be assessed for domestic violence," Thompson said. "We just shouldn't assume that someone could never be a victim of abuse because she comes from such a good family or has such a wonderful husband who does so much for the community. We don't know what's going on behind closed doors and we have to make sure that we ask."

Nanci Kreidman, executive director the Domestic Violence Action Center, said she has no doubt that the number of domestic abuse victims is underreported, and that includes those coming from middle- and upper-income families.

There are 3,000 arrests made by police under the category "abuse of a household or family member" in Hawai'i annually, Kreidman said.

"But there's criminal property damage, trespassing, kidnapping, terroristic threatening and sexual assault. None of those are captured by the relationship between the parties," she said. "We don't know how many of these other things occur between spouses."

Kreidman said one reason why domestic violence from middle- and upper-income families is less likely to be reported may simply be because they tend to live in more isolated settings than other families.

The victims themselves may also be less likely to come forward because of "the shame, the embarrassment, the pressure, the mandate that this doesn't happen to educational, professional, accomplished and privileged people," Kreidman said.

That's when the stereotypes enter into the equation, Kreidman said. "I don't know that it's happening to anybody else like me, everybody else that it's happening to doesn't look like me, and I haven't been given any permission to talk about what's happening to me. So I keep it a secret, and I continue to keep it a secret."

Denise Brown, sister of Nicole Brown Simpson, was the guest speaker of the conference. Since the death of her sister and the ensuing O.J. Simpson trial, Brown has helped lead the Nicole Brown Charitable Foundation. She also speaks across the U.S. on the issue of domestic violence and lobbies for legislative solutions for domestic violence.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month nationwide.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.