The Women’s Greatest Fears
Given these realities, immigrant and refugee women live with many real fears. One is the fear of deportation, for themselves, for their children or for their husband. Even if the women sponsored their husbands, because they often do not know their rights, they fear that they could be deported if they report their husband, or in some other way “cause trouble” in their new country.
One example of fear for a woman whose husband is a refugee claimant is that he will be deported if a criminal charge is laid against him for assaulting her. According to Employment and Immigration Canada (EIC), this fear is unfounded for several reasons. EIC representatives take the legal position that deportation, if it does occur, will more likely be the result of the claimant being found not to be a refugee. In addition, the laying of criminal charges is not a reason for depor tation, even if the claimant is found to be a refugee. A person who is eventually determined to be a Convention refugee cannot be removed to the country of persecution. However, a Convention refugee convicted of a serious crime does not have the right to have an application for permanent resident processed in Canada.
As well, a woman who does not make her own claim for refugee status may fear that she will be deported with her husband if he is convicted of abusing her. EIC points out that, according to immigration legislation, every individual over the age of 18 is entitled to a full hearing at an inquiry and is not automatically deported. Children under the age of 18 are provided adequate legal counsel if their parents so choose. Furthermore, EIC advised that any woman who has a basis for making a claim to refugee status should make her own claim rather than linking her claim to that of her husband.
Women who have been sponsored by their husbands fear that if they break the conditions of sponsorship, they will be unable to obtain Canadian citizenship themselves, and that their husband’s chances will also be jeopardized. However, according to EIC, sponsorship breakdown does not jeopardize the sponsor’s nor the immigrant’s ability to obtain Canadian citizenship. The responsibilities of sponsorship rest with the sponsor only and not with the immigrant. EIC makes it clear that an immigrant woman cannot be held responsible for a sponsorship breakdown.
Women fear that their husbands could get custody of the children if the abuse becomes public knowledge. They also feel that they could seriously jeopardize their children’s futures by depriving them of a parent, if they were to make the decision to leave home with the children, Women who come from cultures where separation or divorce can result in great loss of family reputation may fear that they will deprive their children of the opportunity to marry at all or to marry well within their culture.
In cultures where a stigma is attached to “troubled relationships” and to women who do not take responsibility for the happiness and survival of the marriage, women who are abused fear accusations that they have brought shame on the community, and they fear the ostracism from friends and family members that can result.
Within this context, women may fear the individualized approach often taken in this country to deal with violence. They see themselves as part of a wider family and sometimes also a wider community. These women may see efforts to encourage them to take advantage of counselling for themselves as ways to separate them from their families or communities, and as selfish and irresponsible ways of approaching their pain.
Women fear that they will be unable to survive if they leave their husbands or if their husbands are put in jail. Especially for women with little or no employment history and few or no skills in French or English, this fear is well founded on reality.
Many immigrant and refugee women fear involvement with the justice system, often because of their experiences with police as a repressive force in their country of origin, sometimes because of the fear that involvement with the justice system will mean deportation, often because the justice system is intimidating, and because many immigrant and visible minority women and men report experiences of racism from justice system representatives, according to those interviewed for this report.
The Women’s Hopes and Dreams
Many immigrant women and men come to a new country to give their children a better life. This hope can become their reason for survival and a reason for enduring hardship. Abuse, in this context, can become just another of the hardships the woman feels she must endure for her children’s sake. The Women’s Needs This summary of some of the realities of immigrant and refugee women who are abused points to a broad spectrum of needs. Many-of these needs are identical to the needs of all battered women. However, the intensity of these needs, given the intensity of the isolation, fear and powerlessness of many immigrant and refugee women, is often much more acute. In addition, people interviewed stressed that the needs of immigrant and refugee women who are battered cannot be separated from the needs of immigrant and refugee women more generally. The disadvantaged and isolated lives of many immigrant and refugee women reduce the choices available to them and increase their vulnerability and entrapment when they live with an abusive partner.
The primary needs of immigrant and refugee women who are battered, as identified by women and men interviewed for this project, are summarized below.
1. Above all, immigrant and refugee women need to be informed of their rights and the laws pertaining to wife assault and immigration status.
2. People interviewed also stressed the overwhelming need for a supportive network to provide understanding and caring as well as a sense of greater freedom and confirmation that she is not alone.
3. Immigrant and refugee women who are abused need the opportunity to discuss and reassess their beliefs and assumptions concerning wife abuse, but they need to be able to talk about these issues with women and men who understand their culture and who can communicate in their language.
4. Immigrant and refugee women also need subsidized language-training classes with training allowances and free day care facilities. Because women are often sponsored by their husbands, and their husbands have made a legal undertaking to provide for their needs during the sponsorship period (up to 10 years), they are ineligible for basic training allowances while they attend language training. Under this arrangement, the woman is legally dependent on her husband and this dependence enforces her social and emotional isolation which intensifies her abuse. Certainly, settlement languagetraining programs are available for women not in the labour market, and for women who have been sponsored by their husbands, but these are part-time courses which provide on-site babysitting and transportation costs where necessary, but which do not provide training allowances. One respondent commented that these courses are seen as “secondclass classes” which through subject matter and orientation reinforce women’s dependent status and traditional female roles.
5. Immigrant and refugee women need culturally sensitive, multicultural, multilingual and multiracial child care facilities to enable them to break the isolation so many suffer.
6. There is an urgent need for more job-training courses and for a wider variety of such training courses, especially for women who do not have language skills in either English or French. Currently, some immigrant women’s programs, settlement agencies and ethnocultural agencies offer job-training courses, but the funding is limited, the programs can serve only a small number of women and few programs are available that accept women without language skills in one of the two official languages in Canada.
7. Immigrant and refugee women need affordable, good housing to give them the choice to leave an abusive partner. Although this is a general problem for women across Canada, because immigrant and refugee women often have no family or friends to rely on, their need for housing can be more urgent.
8. Immigrant and refugee women need more services available in their own languages and with sensitivity to their culture, to address their legal, economic, safety and support needs.
Isolated, Afraid and Forgotten: The Service Delivery Needs and Realities of Immigrant and Refugee Women Who Are Battered
