Just as #MeToo, fuelled by the extraordinary courage and conviction of women, became a global force to reckon with, there is a need for a movement against domestic violence and abuse
There can hardly be a more opportune time than now, in the midst of a culturally, politically and economically powerful ‘MeToo’ movement across the world, to revisit the larger cause of domestic violence and abuse. There is an urgent need for an equally powerful social media-driven movement against it like #NeverAgain. As an Attorney with long years of passionate advocacy of this important socio-cultural and legal issue, this writer has been particularly focussed on issues of domestic violence and abuse in the diasporic Indian/South Asian families in the US. Anecdotal experience suggests that the problem exists in a significant way among the large expatriate Indian population around the world as well but does not often get the attention it so urgently demands.
Just as #MeToo, fuelled by extraordinary courage and conviction of women, who were silenced and oppressed for decades, as well as aided by the power and reach of social media, has become a global force to reckon with, there is a need for a scaleable movement on this issue. One is conscious that South Asian women, trapped in violent and abusive domestic situations, may find it hard to make their case on social media but it is a tool that ought to be employed to network, put abusive spouses and families on immediate notice and end it once and for all.
The case of Indian and South Asian women, who marry Indian/South Asian men living in the US and end up in violent or abusive domestic situations, is unique for several reasons. Perhaps the most important one is that many of them are either completely unprepared or ill-prepared to deal with it because they find themselves in a wholly new socio-cultural milieu in a country some 10,000 miles away from India and other South Asian nations. Many fall into such relationships even before they have had the time to familiarise themselves with their immediate surroundings, let alone social and legal services being available to them.
Overarching their rather harrowing lives is the fear of social stigma. More often than not, they are told stories of how a wonderful life awaits them in America, the world’s richest country, which would be a dramatic improvement for them, compared to what they experience in India. With this as the backdrop, to find oneself in an abusive relationship so far away from familiar surroundings, makes things much harder for them. The consequence is that many of them choose to endure abuse rather than upset the rhythm of their lives.
This writer’s extensive engagement with the women trapped in abusive relationships reveals that one common feeling among them is one of utter helplessness, exacerbated by what society back home might say about their failure to make their marriages work. The writer also found that a majority of these women would not only muster enough courage to speak out but even take legal action if they had a helping hand either from individual attorneys like the writer herself or legal aid groups.
Although there have been no national or state-wide studies of Indian/South Asian women and domestic violence in the US, there is reason to believe that this is a growing problem. Indian Americans are a reasonably large group of people. According to the US Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey, there are 3,982,398 multi-race, multi-ethnic and single-race Asian Indians, of which 3,699,957 are single race. While Indian Americans barely constitute about one per cent of the US population, because of their broad economic success, they are a force to reckon with far beyond their numbers. In terms of domestic and sexual violence among South Asian communities, a fact sheet released by the Asian Pacific Institute on gender-based violence is quite instructive. Here are some of their findings:
Domestic violence:
• In a study of 208 South Asian women recruited through community outreach in the Greater Boston area, 21 per cent reported having experienced physical and/or sexual abuse at the hands of their intimate partner; 15 per cent reported such experience during the previous year. (Intimate partner violence associated with poor health outcomes in US South Asian women).
• In a face-to-face interview study of 1,577 Asians recruited from Asian organisations and gathering places in the greater Houston area in Texas, 20 per cent of the Indian respondents (154 male and female) reported experiencing at least one form of intimate partner violence based on the eight-item Conflict Tactics Scale, ranging from “thrown objects at the respondent” to “used a knife or gun on the respondent” during the previous year. (A prevalence study on partner abuse in six Asian American ethnic groups in the USA)
• A study on life course experiences of intimate partner violence and help-seeking (lifecourse IPV and help-seeking study), which assessed experiences of IPV among 56 Indian and Pakistani abused women (and 87 Filipina women) aged 18-60 recruited via various community outreach methods in the San Francisco Bay Area, found that 96 per cent of Indian and Pakistani victims reported having experienced physical violence by an intimate partner. About 50 per cent of Indian and Pakistani victims reported having experienced stalking by an intimate partner. And 64 per cent of Indian and Pakistani victims reported having experienced sexual violence by an intimate partner. Indian and Pakistani victims born in the US, or those who had immigrated to America pre-adolescence (1.5+ generations), were more likely to experience all three forms of IPV — physical violence, sexual assault and stalking, compared to those born outside the US and those who immigrated post-adolescence. Younger Indian and Pakistani victims were more likely to experience stalking by intimate partners compared to their older counterparts. (Lifecourse Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence and Help-Seeking among Filipina, Indian, and Pakistani Women: Implications for Justice System Responses).
• A study of 160 South Asian women (who were married or in a heterosexual relationship), recruited through community outreach methods such as flyers, snowball sampling and referrals in Greater Boston (Raj and Silverman Study), found that 42 per cent of the participants reported that they had been physically and/or sexually abused in some way by their current male partners in their lifetime; 36.9 per cent reported having been victimised in the past year. Around 30 per cent reported having experienced partners ‘physical abuse and 18.8 per cent reported having experienced partners‘ sexual abuse. About 65.2 per cent of the women reporting physical abuse also reported sexual abuse. Sixteen per cent reported injury or the need for medical services as a result of a partner’s violence. Women, who reported intimate partner violence, were more likely than those who did not report violence to indicate that they had experienced “poor physical health in seven or more of the last 30 days” (20 per cent vs seven per cent), “depression [in] seven or more of the last 30 days” (32 per cent vs 10 per cent), “anxiety [in] seven or more of the last 30 days” (34 per cent vs 20 per cent) and “suicidal ideation during the last year” (16 per cent vs three per cent). No significant difference was found in the prevalence of domestic violence between arranged marriages and non-arranged marriages. (Intimate partner violence against South Asian women in greater Boston)
Abuse by in-laws
• Of a convenience sample of 169 South Asian women, who were married at the time of the survey, six per cent reported having experienced emotional abuse by in-laws. The proportion of women, who reported emotional abuse by in-laws, was higher among those reporting partners’ violence in their current relationship (15 per cent) than those who did not report such violence (three per cent). (Victims of intimate partner violence more likely to report abuse from in-laws).
• In a telephonic interview survey of a random sample of Gujarati adults aged between 18 and 64 years, seven per cent of the female respondents reported that in-laws had called them names. (The Shanti Project, Baseline Community-Wide Survey. Unpublished raw data).
Domestic violence-related homicide
• A report on 160 US domestic violence related homicides in Asian families based on newspaper clippings and information from advocates for a six-year period from 2000–2005 found that 30 of 158 (19 per cent) victims with known ethnicities were South Asian. And 32 of 122 (26 per cent) perpetrators with known ethnicities were South Asian. (Shattered Lives: Homicides, Domestic Violence and Asian Families).
Seeking help
• The Raj and Silverman Study found that 11 per cent of South Asian women reporting intimate partner violence indicated receiving counseling support services for domestic abuse. Only three per cent of the abused South Asian women in the study ever obtained a restraining order against an abusive partner. This rate is substantially lower than that reported in a study of women in Massachusetts, in which over 33 per cent of the women, who reported intimate partner violence in the past five years, obtained a restraining order.
Seeking help from family members
• In a study of 62 battered women (20 African American, 22 Hispanic, and 20 South Asian), South Asian women were more likely to seek help from family members. South Asian women were significantly more likely to be advised by family members “to stay in the marriage” than other groups of women. (Social support and disclosure of abuse: Comparing South Asian, African American, and Hispanic battered women).
According to estimates, two out of five South Asian women report domestic violence, which is much higher than the general US population (28 per cent according to UNICEF, 2000). These statistics tell only a fraction of the story. They tell you how many women had the courage to report abuse or call for help. How many more are silent, terrorised, obedient to the abuser and isolated in an abusive situation we do not know. The numbers of those, who do not call for help, too are not known because they do not recognise the situation is abusive or they do not know their legal rights. All we know is that domestic violence in South Asian community “is seriously under-reported because we have seen many women who never get as far as the formal institutions.” (Preisser, 1999).
However, because of the state of the current law, both in terms of immigration policy and in terms of where we are with international agreements between the US and India, in too many cases this writer’s hands are tied. Much more should be done than simply answering their calls and do what can be done to counsel, educate and help them negotiate laws that too often keep them in unhealthy situations or separate them from their own children. Ultimately, the laws need to accommodate these special cases. The awareness must spread to citizens of the US so that we can all make a concerted effort to relieve the suffering of some of our most vulnerable residents.
(The writer is Attorney at law, Supreme Court of the United States of America)
