Acts of violence occurring between individuals having an intimate relationship g in the domestic setting, are referred to domestic violence. Domestic violence includes actions like sexual, physical as well as psychological abuse. Domestic violence most of the time tends to refer to the abusing action of the males towards their female partners, however domestic violence can be perceived in partners of the same sex as well (Stanko, Hanmer and Radford 2013). This paper aims to highlight the domestic violence that is inflicted on the female population especially the immigrant women in Australia. Additionally the paper suggests recommendations to address such actions through the implementation of certain public awareness and health promotion interventions.
This paper conducted a survey on the domestic violence on the immigrant women in Australia. This study involved searching of five peered reviewed journal papers obtained from several databases. The databases used for obtaining these articles included Google scholar, science direct, and the databases of the Australian University libraries. The key terms used for searching the articles were domestic violence, immigrant women, Australia, government policies, public interventions, clinical and medical interventions and health promotion.
In a study by Erez et al. (2000), it was reported that domestic violence on the migrant women was ambiguous in nature. The results also stated that women belonging from the non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) tend to experience elevated violence levels as compared to others. The social context which mainly affects the immigrant women involves a complex mix of cultural, legal, and practical factors that interact with each other making immigrant women tending to stay back in an abusive relationship. Most of the time the battered immigrant women are financially dependent on their male partners and are insecure economically. They tend not to have occupational or linguistic skills or tendency of attaining employment. Therefore their primary role is perceived only as that of a wife and a mothers. These non-English speaking women are unable to access the proper services of provision of support due to their language barriers. Additionally these women lack the knowledge of their legal rights and the support services that are available to them. They even lack emotional support and face social isolation along with increased fear of abuse by their partners. They lack community sanction related to domestic violence. The paper puts forward that The Australian Domestic Violence Provision Policy was developed in order to support these immigrant women suffering from domestic violence. Development of these policies faced a number of challenges as it only addressed the migration polices.
In another study conducted by Astbury et al. (2000), it was presented that the over-seas males tend to conduct homicide on their female partners more as compared to the others who belong to the English speaking background. It is seen that these migrant women do not leave such violent situations therefore get involved in escalating violence. Over a 70% of migrant women lack the minimal knowledge of their legal rights in terms of victims of domestic violence. Most of the time these migrant women are reluctant to contact the authorities or the police, as they have instilled fear of the police while in their country of origin. Often in these women domestic violence is seen to develop a feeling of shame. Additionally they feel the pressure to keep up their marriage as they have a constant fear of getting deported. There is an erosion of self-esteem in these women, and they lack close family or friends around them in whom they would confide. Often the health effects are quite adverse in these migrant women, which is quite similar to that of the experience of the women who are abused in the Australian society. This paper highlights the implementation of interventions like the clinical and medical awareness programs which helps to address the harmful health effects of domestic violence in these women.
Ghafournia et al. (2011) in a study stated that women have been battered by the males, for a show of male power, control and dominance. The researcher also mentioned that violence against the immigrant women was a continuous process of a prior pattern of the abuse faced in their home country, where violence was tolerated publicly. This violence inflicted on the immigrant women by their partners is often seen attributable to their immigration experience. The process of immigration often results in conditions such as underemployment or most of the time unemployment especially due to the language barriers. This compromised position of the immigrants contributes towards battering, that increase the severity of violence that is inflicted on these women. As mentioned in the other studies, these women due to fear of social stigma and other factors like fear of getting deported or social isolation end up staying back in the violent conditions, thus escalating the severity of violence. In order to address such conditions there are implementation of long terms goals that aim to empower these women, who can as a result resist the violence in their own way. Language skills along with education and opportunities of employment minimise the dependence of immigrant women.
Migration in Australia is one of the key driver of the population growth therefore most of the population of Australia are currently overseas born or is the ward of a migrant parent. In a study by Mitchell et al. (2011.), it was seen that the values and immigration status of this population often increases the complexities that are normally tends to involve domestic violence. Immigration often causes social and cultural dislocation and leads to the intensification of domestic violence. In the ABS Personal Safety Survey, it was reported that the Australian-born women are more likely to experience both physical and sexual assault in the previous 12 months than those born overseas. The report also showed that the current violence coming from the partner experience from the age of 15 changed very less irrespective of the fact that whether these women were born in Australian, or are born overseas in the English-speaking countries or any other country. The IVAWS also evidently showed that these women who belong to the English-speaking backgrounds shows an elevated level of physical, sexual and other kinds of violence in comparison to non-English-speaking background (NESB) with 87 women over their lifetime. This was seen to be similar with findings that most of the women from backgrounds of CaLD are less involved in reporting domestic violence to police or are less involved in accessing the mainstream services.
Domestic violence is often perceived as a major health problem and human rights violation that effects the ethno-cultural affiliations and the economic values. However in spite of these violations, the study shows that there is a lack of use of family violence services by the immigrant women and the refugee communities. This was mainly due to the prevalence of the male dominated cultures prevalent in the country of origin of these immigrant women. The cultural norms of these women was seen as barrier to the use of services. This paper uses forum theatre as a powerful tool that successfully used theatre for establishing a community understanding in order to address the issues such as domestic violence. Through the use of theatre based ethnography, the aim was to identify the major issues and the challenges that are needed to be identified so that it would help these immigrant women and assist them in using the services in situation of domestic or family violence (Colucci et al., 2014).
From the study it was seen that the policies that were developed by the Australian government were developed on the fundamentals of the migrant policies only, hence were not able to address the problems of these migrant women in terms of domestic violence completely. In order to be more efficient, these policies must address the socio-cultural factors along with the economical factor prevalent among these migrant population (Stanko, Hanmer and Radford 2013). Some interventions were also implemented of clinical nature, however professionals lacked proper training in order to address the victimised women. Therefore proper training in terms of treatment, initial questioning and counselling is required so that these migrant women are able to disclose their problems to the professionals (Fisher 2013). Long terms goals implemented to empower the immigrant women should be culturally appropriate and should be made to meet the circumstances and their special needs. Conduction of interventions like forum theatres should conduct workshops like the pre and post-performance surveys and interviews in order to address and identify the problems with more efficacy (Othman, Goddard and Piterman, 2014).
Conclusion
In conclusion it can be stated that in the Australian context, the violence against the immigrant women is mostly due to the factors like the cultural, socio-economic and the religious factors. The women who are marginalised by age, ethnicity, culture, sexual identity and visa status tend to be more vulnerable to domestic violence. Use of public health interventions and government policies help to address these issues
References
Astbury, J., Atkinson, J., Duke, J.E., Easteal, P.L., Kurrle, S.E., Tait, P.R. and Turner, J., 2000. The impact of domestic violence on individuals. Medical Journal of Australia, 173(8), pp.427-432.
Colucci, E., O’Connor, M., Field, K., Baroni, A., Pryor, R. and Minas, H., 2014. Nature of domestic/family violence and barriers to using services among Indian immigrant women. Alterstice-Revue Internationale de la Recherche Interculturelle, 3(2), pp.9-26.
Erez, E., 2000. Immigration, culture conflict and domestic violence/woman battering. Crime prevention and community safety, 2(1), pp.27-36.
Ghafournia, N. 2011. Battered at home, played down in policy: Migrant women and domestic violence in Australia. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 16(3), 207-213.
Mitchell, L., 2011. Domestic violence in Australia: an overview of the issues.
Phillips, J. and Vandenbroek, P., 2014. Domestic, family and sexual violence in Australia: an overview of the issues. Department of Parliamentary Services, Parliamentary Library.
Fisher, C., 2013. Changed and changing gender and family roles and domestic violence in African refugee background communities post-settlement in Perth, Australia. Violence Against Women, 19(7), pp.833-847.
Berns, N.S., 2017. Framing the victim: Domestic violence, media, and social problems. Routledge.
Othman, S., Goddard, C. and Piterman, L., 2014. Victims’ barriers to discussing domestic violence in clinical consultations: A qualitative enquiry. Journal of interpersonal violence, 29(8), pp.1497-1513.
Stanko, E., Hanmer, J. and Radford, J., 2013. Women, Policing, and Male Violence (Routledge Revivals): International Perspectives. Routledge.
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