Momas House

The U.S. Department of Justice defines domestic violence as “a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner.  Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.

Frequent exposure to violence in the home not only predisposes children to numerous social and physical problems, but also teaches them that violence is a normal way of life - therefore, increasing their risk of becoming society's next generation of victims and abusers.”

Sex trafficking is defined as: “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.” There are also numerous reports and studies asserting that most female victims of human sex trafficking begin working in the sex trade as young as 12 and continue to do so as adults, but there are few services available to adult victims.

Though modern-day slavery is still very much alive and thriving in the United States in the form of human labor and sex trafficking it is a problem that many people remain very much unaware.  Very few people are aware of the inhumane treatment that the victims of these crimes have to endure or the many obstacles they have to overcome on the road to restoration and recovery.

1 in 4 women experience domestic violence in their lifetime. Approximately 30,000 victims of sex trafficking die of abuse, disease, torture or neglect each year. 3 women are killed by their intimate partners each day, every year and the homicide rate of female prostitutes is 17 times higher than the matched population. Yet, in the United States both domestic violence and prostitution are considered victimless crimes.

The 35 women that MOMA’s house has assisted and those women who will seek our help in the future suffer the same trauma as victims of crimes such as rape and assault. Over the past few years there have been increased pressure by women’s rights advocates to update laws and reclassify these crimes against persons at both the national and state level. There have been strides, but progress has been slow.

Meanwhile, most of these women endure years of abuse, beginning in childhood. They have low self-esteem and very little sense of their own worth. The MOMA’s house team is dedicated to helping them gain confidence and seeing themselves as worthy of respect and love. It breaks our hearts when a woman enters our door physically and/or emotionally battered and beaten, but the reward is in watching her become stronger each day and in empowering her to seize control of her own destiny.

This is why MOMA’S house offers transitional housing and restorative services to adult females without custodial children who were victims of human trafficking and domestic violence. And our goal oriented program has been very successful in transforming abuse victims into self-sufficient, independent survivors.

Though our target group was originally women aged 18 to 25, we have and will continue to serve older women. We strive to help these women who have had little opportunity to develop marketable educational, personal and interpersonal job skills to gain self-sufficiency and independence.