How do animals fit into the lives of women who are abused?
The likelihood that women’s shelter personnel will encounter women and children who have been coerced or controlled by batterers using animal abuse as a weapon is high: 1. More families in America have pets than have children. 2. The majority of pet owners are parents with children. 3. 64.1% of households with children under age 6, and 74.8% of households with children over age 6, also have pets. 4. In study after study, as many as 71% of pet-owning women seeking shelter at safe houses have reported that their partner had threatened and/or actually hurt or killed one or more of their pets; 32% of these women reported that one or more of their children had also hurt or killed pets. These women are reporting, in alarmingly high numbers, that their animals are harmed or threatened to perpetuate the landscape of terror under which they live. They are prevented from leaving their abusers because they fear what will happen to the animals in their absence. How would cross-reporting identify o
