Geneva Doles says she can relate to the battered women who seek services through the Pee Dee Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Assault.

Doles, a prevention specialist at the organization’s Darlington office, said she was physically and emotionally abused by two ex-husbands when she lived in New York and New Jersey.

Doles said domestic violence is just as big a problem in rural areas as it is in large cities.

To combat the problem in the Pee Dee, S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster announced Monday, his office will receive a $900,000 federal grant to hire prosecutors to handle cases in Chesterfield, Clarendon, Darlington, Dillon, Marion, Marlboro and Williamsburg counties.

Darlington County, for example, ranked sixth in the state in 2003 in the per-capita rate of domestic violence victims, well ahead of more populated counties such as Richland and Lexington.

Doles said although she was shoved and hit through the years, no one could easily see she was a victim of domestic violence.

“When they see no scars, no bruises, no blood, they assume you’re OK, but you’re all torn up inside,” said Doles, 54.

The prosecutors will handle cases in magistrate and municipal courts, where the vast majority of the state’s approximately 36,000 domestic violence cases per year are processed, McMaster said. Typically, solicitor’s offices don’t staff those cases because of a lack of money, so there is no lawyer representing the victim, he said.

“What the defendants know today, and, sadly, what the victims know today is that there is no justice because there is no prosecutor,” he said. “What I hope is that this will serve as a model for the country.”

Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, whom McMaster, a Republican, credited with helping secure the grant, said the problem of domestic violence in poor, rural areas shows that it is “pervasive across the social spectrum.”

“We usually just like to focus on urban areas,” Clyburn said during a news conference. “Very seldom do we look at rural communities for this kind of effort.”

Clyburn acknowledged that while similar federal demonstration grants have been awarded elsewhere in the country, the “rural nature” of the South Carolina grant is “very, very unique.”

McMaster said he expects the three full-time prosecutors to be hired under the grant will recruit volunteer lawyers to serve as prosecutors in the seven counties. McMaster earlier started a program in which volunteer lawyers handle CDV cases in magistrate or municipal courts in Columbia and in Kershaw, Orangeburg and York counties.

Besides prosecutors, the two-year U.S. Department of Justice grant also will pay for a project coordinator, a part-time assistant, three court advocates to assist victims, and a bilingual immigrant outreach coordinator to help Hispanic victims.

Hispanic victims often are “completely unaware of what their rights are in South Carolina,” said Vicki Bourus, director of the S.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, which will train the court advocates and bilingual coordinator.

In addition, the South Carolina Baptist Convention, which has more than 2,000 churches and 700,000 members statewide, will train ministers in those areas to recognize the signs of domestic violence within their congregations and to counsel victims.

“We see this as a great opportunity,” said Roger Acton, associate director of the convention’s adult ministry group, during the news conference.

The convention worked with the attorney general’s office to apply for the grant but is not receiving grant money directly.

Laura Hudson, spokeswoman for the S.C. Victim Assistance Network, said a new state law increasing fines and penalties for domestic violence will “dovetail into this (grant) initiative beautifully.”

Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484 or rbrundrett@thestate.com.