NCJ Number
185947
Date Published
1999
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This chapter is a compilation of the firsthand experiences of three women who are survivors of family violence and who have also had to use the welfare system.
Abstract
The three women describe the powerlessness and hopelessness they felt under the abusive domination of male partners who used violence to control family members in accordance with the abuser's dictates. In an effort to develop better lives for themselves and their children, the women turned to welfare assistance for the economic help needed to break from economic dependence on their abusive partners. One woman notes that in Utah, her state of residence, there is a 3-year lifetime limit on public assistance, although the Federal guideline is 5 years. She advises that abused women and their children are typically emotionally traumatized by abuse, and it often takes a long time for abused women to become economically independent. All three women testify to their strong desire to build independent lives without public assistance; however, all indicate that they could not have survived financially and emotionally without the assistance of welfare in making the transition to a life free of the violence that was destroying their lives and those of their children. The women are concerned that current welfare policy is based in a stereotypical view of persons on public assistance as lazy, unambitious, and unwilling to make the hard, disciplined choices required to be financially independent. In all three cases, the women applied for public assistance because they had no other means of economic survival after leaving their abusers.