Affilia

As anti-trafficking social service providers (SSPs) facilitate the process of victim recovery and empowerment, they also participate in the dissemination of trafficking-related knowledge to the general public. Drawing on a feminist postcolonial framework, this study sought to examine how anti-trafficking SSPs represent trafficking victims in written narratives published on their organizational websites. Thirty-three narratives were drawn from the websites of 10 New York–based anti-trafficking SSPs. Despite the widespread adoption of a strength-based term, “survivor,” the narratives were found to reinforce a gendered and racialized representation of trafficking victims as sex trafficked women from the “global South” and to (re)produce many “ideal” trafficking victim stereotypes that have been dominating the current discourses of trafficking. A “life transformation” discourse was pervasive, discursively foregrounding the positive impact of the SSPs on trafficking survivors. The findings suggested a need for anti-trafficking SSPs to engage with critical reflection on their positionality and intentionality in representing trafficking victims/survivors and to adopt a survivor-led storytelling paradigm. This study also provided a timely reminder for social work practitioners and researchers to continue to challenge the dominant narratives embedded in their fields of practice, to exercise critical self-reflexivity, and to provide a discursive space for those who have been deprived of voices.

In 2015, marriage equality in the United States was a big win for the gay and lesbian movement. Marriage equality as a primary focus of the movement, however, was not without its critiques, particularly as an issue affecting mostly white, gay, economically secure individuals. Given the history of the movement, it is essential to ask what is next. Young queer and trans people represent the next generation of potential activists and advocates for queer and trans liberation, yet little empirical attention has been paid to their goals for the movement and motivations to be actively involved, particularly among young adults in rural, conservative states. Therefore, this study sought to understand the social, economic, and environmental issues deemed important by queer and trans young adults (aged 18–29), as well as their motivations to get involved in activism efforts. Data came from a mixed-methods program evaluation, which presents a picture of the issues and motivations that led study participants (n = 65) toward activism in one conservative, highly rural, Southwestern state in the United States. The findings of this study are discussed in light of theoretical and empirical literature and then implications for the queer and trans movement, activists, and organizers are offered.

This study explores the experiences of domestic violence victims with their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) applications and the subsequent assessment processes in the state of Georgia, focusing on the conditions related to their disclosure of abuse and their postdisclosure experiences. This study interviewed five victims of domestic violence, four local victim advocates, and three nationally recognized experts regarding domestic violence screening in TANF programs using semistructured interviews. Data were analyzed using grounded theory techniques. The findings showed that the participants perceived TANF application and assessment processes as (i) inaccessible and (ii) unhelpful, lacking special considerations for domestic violence victims. Conditions related to victims’ disclosure of abuse included (i) safety concerns, (ii) working relationships between local victim support agencies and TANF offices, (iii) a safe environment to disclose abuse, and (iv) advocacy. After disclosing their domestic violence history to their TANF caseworkers, the victims reported experiencing (i) a lack of continued assessment and support related to domestic violence and (ii) a compulsion to make final decisions regarding continuing or discontinuing their TANF applications. The current study contributes to the field of social work by providing a better understanding of how and to what extent victims of domestic violence are actually supported within the TANF system and by yielding practice and policy implications for effectively assisting the victims of domestic violence within the TANF system.

Violence against women often continues after couples separate. Although the involvement of children in intimate partner violence is known, no study has investigated the role of children in postseparation violence in southern Europe. The aim of this study was to analyze male perpetrators’ strategies to maintain control over the woman after couples separate and the involvement of children in this process. We designed a multimethod research with a sample of women attending five anti-violence centers in Italy: In the quantitative part, women were interviewed with a questionnaire (N = 151) at baseline and followed up 18 months later (N = 91); in the qualitative part, in-depth interviews were carried out with women (N = 13) attending the same centers. Results showed that women experienced high levels of violence and that children were deeply involved. When women with children were no longer living with the violence perpetrator, threats, violence, manipulation, and controlling behaviors occurred during father–child contacts: 78.9% of women in the longitudinal survey and all women in the qualitative study reported at least one of these unsettling behaviors. The qualitative study allowed for discovering some specific perpetrator strategies. Making the woman feel guilty, threatening, denigrating, and impoverishing her; preventing her from living a normal life; and trying to destroy the mother–child bond were key elements of a complex design aimed at maintaining coercive control over the ex-partner. Results from this multimethod study provided a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of coercive control and postseparation violence and how perpetrators use children to fulfill their aims.

Economic abuse as a form of men’s violence against women has only been recently recognized as a form of violence in its own right. It is known to further exacerbate the detrimental long-term impacts of domestic and family violence on women and children. There is evidence to suggest the effectiveness of financial literacy programs in mitigating some of these impacts and improving women’s financial well-being in the longer term; however, there are very few domestic violence–informed, empirically evaluated programs internationally. This article reports the findings of a specialist domestic violence financial literacy curriculum, which was developed and piloted in Western Australia using pre–post measures and focus groups. These findings suggest that such financial literacy programs delivered in refuge settings have effective short-term outcomes among women. Lessons learned from the pilot and the implications for future implementation and scaling up of programs and research are also discussed.

With millions of women experiencing forced displacement, attention is needed toward migrant women’s lived experiences. Religion is an understudied but central component of coping for many migrant women. Through the use of qualitative and quantitative methods, an exploratory study was conducted with 36 forced migrant Shia Muslim women residing in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country of first asylum. Using the brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality and drawing from feminist theory, intersectionality, and the ecological framework, we describe women’s experience with religion and spirituality across a variety of domains. Open-ended semistructured interviews were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. Participants were highly religious across all domains measured. Key themes emerged related to how religion helps women manage stress, including: (1) trusting God to solve problems and (2) relying on prayer and other religious practices to cope. Despite these strengths, women also described major challenges to religious practice, where the third identified theme emphasized that fear and persecution limit religious practice. This article builds understanding of forced migrant women’s experiences, with implications for social work practice and immigration policy. Service organizations can recognize and support religious coping, particularly among religious minority refugee women. Additionally, practitioners and policy makers can promote religious tolerance and understanding within diverse host communities.

Feminist movements against domestic and intimate partner violence (DV and IPV) have long struggled with tensions around the professionalization of their work. This article uses qualitative interviews and content analysis to conceptualize the IPV movement’s field of action as an interstitial space. The movement against IPV draws together a multi-institutional audience that reflects the historical trajectory of the field. The IPV organizations in the Boston metropolitan area productively engage with and influence various institutional fields. The boundaries of this interstitial space are the multi-institutional bundles of relations drawn together by the DV movement. In the Boston metropolitan area, the institutional fields of action drawn most strongly into the liminal space of the intimate partner violence field are the wider feminist movement and the institutions of the medical/health sphere, carceral system, and education systems. The work of direct services, advocacy, and prevention defines itself in relation to neighboring institutions but remains grounded in its own interstitial space of the IPV movement through individual practices within organizations.

This study examines university student attitudes concerning social justice and their perceptions of inequality. In this article, we explore how gender shapes students’ understanding of issues of inequality, sexism, racism, classism, and their inclinations to act against these issues. This research seeks to explore how gender shapes students’ understanding of social justice. Moreover, it seeks to answer the following questions: Are women or men more willing to engage in social justice actions? Are women or men more likely to recognize and perceive inequality? Lastly, are women or men more determined to do something to achieve social justice? Results show that women students are far more likely to identify inequality and engage in actions to achieve social justice.