Eagle Pass Youth Advocates Cassandra Gaona, Marisol Cardenas and Dariela Gonzalez after completing their first Familias con Voz violence prevention training in Eagle Pass, TX.

Family violence is a public health epidemic affecting families of all races, classes, and ethnic origins. Migrant women may face special challenges to obtaining domestic violence services and escaping violent relationships. In addition, migrant women who are immigrants face additional barriers, which may include:

• Isolation (may not have access to a telephone or transportation)
• Language barriers
• Cultural issues
• Lack of access to health care and domestic violence services
• Immigration/citizenship status
• Economic constraints

The MCN Family Violence Initiative is aimed at ending familial interpersonal violence in the migrant and immigrant community through community and clinical interventions and MCN has worked on a variety of research and prevention projects over the past fifteen years to help realize this goal. MCN's research projects in the 1990s found rates of family violence ranging from 20%-53% in the migrant population, allowing for documentation of the incidence of this problem for the first time and helping MCN direct future prevention efforts.

Since the mid-1990s, MCN has been involved in varied prevention projects aimed at raising public awareness about family violence and the resources available for battered migrant and immigrant women. MCN's current projects include the Familias con Voz project along the Texas-Mexico border and the Hombres Unidos contra la Violencia Familiar project with migrant men in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Florida.

For more information on the history of MCN's Family Violence Initiative, visit MCN's Family Violence Program History webpage.

For questions about MCN's Family Violence Initiative, please contact Amber Hunter.