Our Causes
For decades, Womankind has been serving survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, and sexual violence of all ages. We provide innovative healing services and award-winning assistance to women and their children. Depending on circumstance, they have access to a safe place to live, assistance with housing, employment, English language training, legal immigration assistance, financial empowerment, and so much more.
Domestic Violence
Domestic Violence is a pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors in which an individual establishes and maintains power and control over another with whom he/she has an intimate, romantic, marital or family relationship. Abusers often use threats, intimidation, isolation, violent acts and other behaviors to establish and maintain power and control.
The followings are common types of abuse that may be used sparingly or consistently throughout a relationship.
Domestic violence occurs in the relationship where abusers and survivors know each other, and could happen both in adult and adolescent intimate or familial relationships. The abuser and survivor may be married, divorced, separated, cohabiting, have a child together, dating or simply part of the family. They may be heterosexual or homosexual. The relationship may be long-term or may have just started. Domestic violence can occur in any type of intimate partner or familial relationship.
Use these guidelines to determine if you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence.
Has your partner ever:
Does your partner ever:
Profile of an Abuser:
Consider these Startling Statistics:
Human Trafficking
Human trafficking involves the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, through force, fraud, or coercion for involuntary servitude, debt bondage, slavery, or commercial sex.
It is a violation of basic human rights and is often considered to be a form of modern day slavery. It exploits vulnerable human beings for the goal of obtaining labor or commercial sexual services.
Human trafficking:
Identifying human trafficking situations can be difficult. Generally, traffickers use the vulnerability of the person, whether it’s due to their inexperience, age, language challenges, or economic circumstance to maintain control.
Some examples of control can be:
Common signs of human trafficking:
Profile of a Trafficker:
Traffickers may be strangers or a network of people who control your movement. They can also be employers and intimate partners.
The following statistics is according to the Polaris Project, a national non-profit focused on eradicating slavery networks that rob human beings of their lives and their independence. The Polaris Project runs the National Human Trafficking Resource Center and the national hotline for trafficking victims. In 2014, their hotline received reports of human trafficking case in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
More than 18,000 total cases of human trafficking have been reported since 2007. There are an estimated 20.9 million victims of human trafficking worldwide, 5.5 million of who are children. 14.3 million of those are victims of labor exploitation.
In 2014, the International Labor Organization estimated that forced labor generated $150 billion in profits a year worldwide.
Sexual Violence
Sexual violence is any sexual act you were forced to do, when you did not want to. Most often, people think of ‘rape’ when anyone mentions ‘sexual assault’ or ‘sexual violence’; however, sexual violence is much broader, encompassing power and control exercised by an intimate partner, by strangers, or anyone using methods that are of a sexual nature.
There is no “typical” type of perpetrator: they can be anyone, including an acquaintance, classmate, employer (often referred to as ‘sexual harassment in the workplace’) or family member, as well as someone who you had no previous contact with. Most of the time, people who commit sexual violence are people that we know well and trust. All perpetrators have one thing in common: they are using sex as a method to intimidate, threaten, and control the victims.
This intimidation and control shows up in a variety of ways, such as:
The public commonly associates sexual assault with rape, but all states have varying laws as to what this is legally defined as and what punishments different types of sexual assault carry. Even though a common characteristic of sexual violence is the lack of consent, the definition of this also varies in the legal system. As a result, many times, a victim is blamed for not saying no and this silences their ability to come forward.
Sexual violence can happen to anyone, of any gender, and can occur at any point in life – from child sexual abuse to those later in life. Sexual violence can occur in a relationship or in a marriage. Sometimes in Asian cultures, it is assumed that sex is a duty and cannot be refused, so marital rape is accepted, even if it is not seen as such. In some culture, it is sometimes assumed that sex is a duty and cannot be refused. Even if sex is viewed this way, it is still considered marital rape.
Because talking about sex itself is taboo in many societies, the barrier to disclose sexual violence is tremendous. Especially when a victim is made to believe either by a legal system or a culture or family member, that they are at fault for the acts, silence amongst survivors or an unwillingness to seek services is common.
Often, sexual violence is confused with only being narrow criminal definition of rape. Popular media have also sensationalized and targeted only those where rape is perpetrated by a stranger or stalker; therefore, many in relationships with the perpetrator may not consider themselves survivors of sexual violence. However, it is much broader than that.
Sexual violence is often used by the perpetrator in order to dominate, control, and degrade. Depending on the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, this can take many forms. It is an exploitation of the sexual vulnerability of the survivor. It often encompasses a physical aspect, but there is almost always a large amount of humiliation and emotional injury that leads to a lot of emotional turmoil.
You are a survivor of sexual violence if you were ever:
Profile of a Perpetrator:
Anyone can be a perpetrator of sexual violence – male or female, older or younger, a family member or a community member, or a stranger.
According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), a national anti-sexual assault organization, approximately 80% of sexual violence survivors are under age 30. Each year, there are about 293,000 victims of sexual assault. About 68% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police. Approximately 4 out of 5 of assaults are committed by someone known to the victim; 47% of rapists are a friend or acquaintance.
In the Asian community, as many as 1 in 5 Asian women is a victim of sexual violence. Often it occurs within domestic violence. Yet only 8% of Asian women report a sexual assault crime, statistically lower than the 26% that report for other races and ethnicities.
Later in Life Abuse
Domestic violence, human trafficking, and sexual violence do not discriminate and could happen to anyone at any point in her/his life. Later in life abuse is defined as the abusive use of power and control against persons, who are over the age of 50 at the hands of their partner, family member, and/or trusted professional.
For survivors of later in life abuse, their perpetrator can be their adult child, which makes their situation more complicated and difficult. Their adult child may take advantage of their parental love and/or threaten parental insecurity to continue abusing them. They may need to depend on their adult child to function daily and even survive. They may need to overcome various obstacles, such as financial and linguistic barriers, to receive care and support from persons other than their adult child. For Asian survivors of later in life abuse, they may possibly need to be concerned about the image and face of their community as well as how they will be treated and perceived by their community.
Survivors of later in life abuse would need to face and cope with their health concerns including but not limited to cognitive, physical, and psychological challenges in the midst of suffering various types of abuse. Their perpetrator could threaten their confidence and memory by targeting and attacking their cognitive challenges. Their perpetrator could be perceived as loving and caring by others, which would further confuse them. Their perpetrator could over-exaggerate their various challenges in order to discredit their voice and story of later in life abuse. Their perpetrator could essentially convince them not to seek support through various manipulation and tactics.
Does your in-laws, adult child and/or caregiver ever:
Profile of a Perpetrator:
Perpetrators of later in life abuse may be male, female, or gender non-conforming. There may be multiple perpetrators of later in life abuse.
The following statistics is according to the findings from “Under the Radar: New York State Elder Abuse Prevalence Study” (2011) prepared by the New York City Department for the Aging, Weill Cornell Medical Center of Cornell University and Lifespan of Rochester, Inc.: The most common form of elder abuse, as self-reported by survivors, is financial abuse. The study also reported high incidences of psychological and physical abuse. 76 out of every 1,000 senior New Yorkers are survivors of elder abuse in a one year period. 9% of all New York City residents who are over age of 60 are survivors of elder abuse. An estimated 260,000 seniors statewide have been survivors of at least one form of elder abuse in the past year.
There are no national studies of elder abuse in the Asian communities so prevalence is difficult to ascertain. At Womankind, 17% or one out of every six survivors are 50 years of age or older. Also, perpetrators of later in life abuse tend to be their in-laws, adult children, and homemakers.
How Can I Help Someone?
You can make a difference in stopping the cycle of violence. Not addressing a potentially abusive situation only serves to perpetuate it. Finding out more about the safety of your friend or family member can help. The most important thing to remember when you talk with your friend or family member is to remain non-judgmental. The abuse is not the victim's fault. Here are some things you can do:
Here are some things NOT to do:
Provide validating messages:
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