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March 2004
Nowhere to Turn?
Responding to partner violence
against immigrant and visible minority women
Voices of Frontline Workers
Vulnerabilities and Barriers
Partner abuse occurs in all cultures, communities and countries. There are particular concerns for women who are immigrants to Canada and visible minorities. Why? Because, compared to other women who suffer partner abuse, these women face additional barriers that prevent them from receiving the necessary help. The vulnerability of immigrant and visible minority women is heightened by unique factors in their life circumstances, and as a result of particular features of our Canadian laws, practices, attitudes and service-delivery systems.
Common Suffering – Common Needs
At the outset, it is important to recognize that these women share a great deal in common with all women who are victims of partner abuse. Discussions about the anguish felt by abused immigrant and visible minority women sound very much like what you would hear from most women in a shelter for victims of domestic violence. They feel lost, helpless, afraid, hopeless, ashamed and broken.
"They feel ashamed about the situation they are in, and they tend to blame themselves."
"There are tremendous feelings of guilt and shame. They are looked at as being the one who has broken up the family unit, so that is very hard for them."
"There are fears for their children and for an uncertain future."
"For many immigrant women, there are fears about having their children abducted from them. People say that it is not easy to take the children away from a mother, but we know how easily it can be done."
"Some women are so lonely. They feel abandoned by the family, by the husband, by the system generally. There is great uncertainty about the future. 'How can I survive?' But eventually, in the successful cases, there is a spirit of defiance. 'I can make it. I can depend on myself. I can take care of myself.' "
"Women are bombarded by the fact that their culture is being demeaned and that they must deal with the violence."
"Many of these women are afraid of being murdered or of losing their children."
"Together with the guilt and shame and fear of being abandoned, there is a fear of trying to exist in this strange new country."
"There are obvious fears about being deported, and fears for their children's safety. 'Will I be allowed to take my children away from their family? Will I be able to live within my culture and my traditional beliefs within a Canadian context?' "
Immigrant and visible minority women also share many of the same basic needs as other women who have been living with partner abuse and are seeking help. First, they need safety and protection for themselves and their children. Then they need a decent place to live, counselling, training, income support, legal aid, employment, child care. These are the building blocks of a new life free of violence.
Like other women in abusive situations, immigrant and visible minority women often cling to the hope that their abuser can be made to change his ways and the family can be preserved.
" 'Can you fix him?' That's usually the first question they ask. 'Can you fix him in a way that makes him understand that the abuse is very hurtful and has a very negative effect on the family?' Above all, the women want to keep the family together."
"It's usually not their idea to separate. They just want to make the man less abusive, to make some changes."
"Emotions range from feelings of guilt, pressures to return, feelings of mistrust, fears about their role as a mother, pressure from the children in terms of being an adequate mother."
"Women need to heal from the abuse, war and trauma they were exposed to, healing from rape and sexual assault, healing even from the settlement process of being in Canada."
Culture Clash
Frontline workers in the focus group discussions noted that some immigrant women come from societies which accord women few, if any, rights. When these women come to Canada, it is like a door opening to new opportunities for greater independence and self-realization. But some husbands and partners are not in favour of this liberation.
"In Canada, women have power and rights. It is our duty to help raise the consciousness of our immigrant sisters."
One of the few male participants in these focus groups talked about the lenient Canadian society that encourages women to defy the control of their spouses:
"I have been listening to bad things from the woman's side only. Since I am the only man here, I am going to give a different perspective. Let's say a family is living in a developing country and all are very happy. The family comes over here because they lose their land. Back home, they had religious bindings as well as moral and cultural bindings, but when they come over here, it's a free world where you can do anything you want.
If the husband is going out and working hard seven, eight, or nine hours a day to bring in money, and the wife is going somewhere else to see friends and others, naturally the husband is concerned. He says, 'Listen, when I am here, you have to be here. How come the kids are going out and are not in control? Why are the girls doing this and the boys doing that? Why aren't the kids coming home at 8 or 9 o'clock? Why are all these things happening?'
There are certain rules which the husband and wife put down, then the wife goes and dismantles the whole thing. Naturally, the husband gets mad, he can't take that, and that's when violence happens. Back home, some of these women are like a bird in a cage. Now that the cage door is open, they can do anything they want. So violence happens."
Another participant said, "We're talking about gender equality. That is a new dialogue for many families." She described a single mother whose teenage son was trying to run the family.
"How does he get control? Through violence. They have to have power and retain control. Violence is one method. They may have used it in the past in the country they came from, or they may feel they have to use it now because of the new circumstances."
"In our culture, we are raised that women are the possessions or objects of men."
"If I am told that I must walk three steps behind, then that is okay, because that is what I used to do. I wouldn't question it."
Other participants, however, talked about families who come here relatively happy and without any experience of abuse by the partner, yet end up in destructive conflict in the new environment. One of the factors identified for this was the loss of traditional checks and balances in the society they left behind.
"There are a number of women who have said 'This never happened at home.' That speaks to the break-up of the family structure. The checks and balances aren't there. The man is not going to abuse his wife when he knows all of her brothers are going to descend on him the next day."
One participant told of her father years ago intervening back home when her sister's partner was abusive. "This was a reflection of our community's value system that violence against women is unacceptable."
Another factor identified was the wrenching adjustment required to adapt to a new society.
"I have received a lot of calls from women where, for the first time, their husbands have hit them, have physically abused them. When they were in their home country, the husband might have been verbally abusive once in a while, but never physically laid a hand on them until they came to this country. I'm not trying to justify the abuse they are facing here, but I think a lot of it has to do with issues of control. You don't feel you are in control of your life."
"For a visible minority, especially those who have just arrived, it's very hard to go to the police because for them, the police have a different connotation."
"In some cultural communities, the extended family is the biggest part of the whole support system that you depend on. Women don't make the decisions; they are made by an elder in the community."
"Most of the social pressure comes from ethnic communities themselves, so the communities are not very likely to openly support women who are trying to leave their husbands. That would challenge their whole patriarchal system. But there are individual women who are taking it upon themselves – of course, with the consent and permission of their husbands – to support the women who are trying to get out of abusive situations."
Loss of Social and Community Supports
A key vulnerability identified in the focus groups was the loss of traditional social and community supports for women. It may happen when the family moves to Canada and is therefore separated from their extended family and friends. But it can also happen to women who leave their abusive partner if her partner's family, friends and the community at large turn on her.
"Women cannot just go next door .... the sense of cultural community versus mainstream individualism tells her, and him, that no one is watching."
"How do I advocate on behalf of my child in a school system that is not responsive or does not embrace what it is that our family needs and represents?"
"When we come here, we lose our support system. It's all been dismantled and we are looking at how we can survive in this new environment."
"If I leave home, where am I going to go? I don't have extended family here. Back home, you depend on others. The woman doesn't make that kind of decision. It is made by some elder in her community. In many cases, she still depends on her parents back home to make the decision, but they don't know the situation here. They're likely to say, 'Stay with him or you will be lost in the new country.' "
"Back home, they knew how to deal with violence. They knew what their rights were and they had support mechanisms. When they come here, I've seen the abuser take advantage by saying, 'I'm the only person here for you, and this is what the community says about you.'"
"Without a man's support, woman doesn't feel comfortable or secure."
"Parents will say, 'Stay with him, because you will be lost in the new country.' She will be debating what we social workers are saying to her, and yet her parents back home are telling her that she will not be able to survive."
"In the community, there is a lot of pressure and gossip and wrong information going around."
"A lot of women are fearful of exploitation because their community is so small. They are afraid they will be ostracized by their community, and get hate mail and phone calls."
Sometimes what the community says about an abused woman who seeks help to stop the violence is not supportive.
"In some communities, revealing domestic violence as a problem isolates the woman. Their own culture rejects them and the mainstream culture won't accept them."
One frontline participant spoke about a woman who had obtained a restraining order against her husband.
"She said 'I need to ask you something. I don't know what to do. A sister from my church told me I had to stop the restraining order against my husband. She said Jesus is coming, and if the order is there, I will go to hell.' "
Cultural communities in Canada are diverse, and some of these communities are struggling to find their place of respect and identity within the Canadian mosaic. One participant pointed out that different communities are at different stages in their adjustment to this new country.
"In newly arrived communities, some community associations may be a little more defensive and protective. They are not ready to look at these kinds of issues. Some communities are more open."
"Some communities are very supportive of abused women and others are totally not. Every culture has its own way – it may be spending time with the family or through attending religious institutions. We might see it as unsupportive when, in fact, there is support."
For the woman, the worst of all possible worlds is to be forced to choose between her community and her personal safety. Because many cultural communities are small and closely interconnected, the woman and her children may have to run away from the whole community in order to be safe, if family and friends take the abuser's side.
"Many women don't come to Canada with their extended families, so their communities are like their families. They fear that if they speak up about personal family matters, they will be rejected by their communities, so in a sense, it is like your family disowning you. That fear is always there."
"Women are leaving not only their partner, but their cultural community, extended family, and faith community as well. Even if they flee to another city or province, the cultural connections are so strong that it is often easy for the abuser to find her. Young women often don't realize what they are giving up, that they cannot reconnect to their cultural communities. That is a huge loss and a huge barrier to women."
The Language Barrier
Women who are newcomers to Canada and who have limited language skills in English or French are acutely disadvantaged when trying to access assistance and information.
"How can women who cannot speak English call 9-1-1?"
Participants shared many stories about women who did not speak English or French trying to call the police for help, but getting none because of their inability to communicate adequately with authorities. There were incidents where the police received a distress call, and because they had no interpreter and the husband spoke English, they listened to him. Of course, he did not implicate himself – he blamed his wife for causing trouble.
In other cases, the children may be asked to interpret the woman's distress call, and if they are sympathetic to their father or worried about the family breaking apart, they may deny that any abuse has occurred.
"They are at the same risk as many other women, but because of the lack of language communication, it is more difficult for them to get assistance."
Not being able to speak the language has huge implications for a woman's access to information. An abusive partner may use misleading information to keep a woman trapped in a violent situation. If she has no means of finding out about her options, in her own language, she will continue to be victimized and see no way out.
"If a woman is told that she can go to a shelter, she will worry: 'Who is going to speak my language? How am I going to explain my situation to a stranger? Will they understand my culture?' "
"There are many translators and interpreters; many white people are doing that. They know the language, but they don't know the culture."
Because of a lack of resources, many service agencies and offices use volunteer interpreters from the women's own cultural communities. In some cities, however, there isn't even money available to give bus fare to the volunteer interpreters so they can get to meetings at the courthouse or the community centre. Some focus group participants were themselves volunteer interpreters and they felt guilty because they could not meet all the needs. Concerns were also expressed about using community volunteers because of issues of confidentiality.
"Even if interpreters are from the same culture and speak the same language, they are using their own assumptions about domestic violence and abuse. When they are interpreting, they may not actually be saying what the woman is expressing."
"If the woman has to bring someone from their own ethnic community with them, confidentiality is out the window. People trust their friends, but a lot of people don't have friends they can trust that much."
"As a service support system, we have to concentrate on the quality and professionalism of the interpreters that are used. They must be bound by rules of confidentiality, adhere to a code of ethics, and not be in a conflict of interest (such as related to the victim), and they must be paid a wage for their services."
To understand how much a woman will suffer to protect her privacy, consider this account from someone who provides information in the community about rights and services for victims of domestic violence:
"It is a story that I almost couldn't believe. A woman came to me one day and said I had spoken to her ESL (English as a Second Language) class two years earlier. 'I didn't want to trust anyone within my own community. I decided when I told my story, I was going to tell you. But I knew my English wasn't good enough. I have been learning English for two years. Now I'm ready. Now I have the words to tell you my story.' "
The issue of independent and professional interpretation services may also arise in other contexts, such as in agencies that provide health care services or counselling. One focus group participant said that her organization did not accept husbands as suitable interpreters for their wives.
"You could see a woman for two or three years. She could be beaten every time before her appointment, but you would not be told that because her partner is interpreting for her. Only professional interpretation should be used."
"More and more we are seeing interracial marriages, so even if a woman goes for help, the person who is providing the services can be up against a number of cultures. It is sometimes not enough to know just one language or one culture. This is where the origin and culture comes in. It can also have an impact on the kind of services received."
In the two French-speaking focus group discussions, a barrier in relation to Canada's official languages was also identified. Participants described difficulties for both French and English speakers – for French-speaking women trying to access services in predominantly English Canada, and for English-speaking women trying to access services in Quebec.
The Immigration Dilemma
Many women who immigrate to Canada do so as spouses, and their husbands are the primary immigrant. The women often do not know what their rights are in this country. They are not familiar with how the immigration system or the justice, social and other systems work. They do not know where to turn.
In all the focus group discussions, participants shared stories of women who were terrified of being deported if they reported that their partners were abusing them. In some cases, the women were told by their abusers that they were in Canada on his sufferance, and that if she misbehaved, he would send her back.
"Their partners purposely misinform them about the acceptable customs in Canada. They prefer to keep the women unaware of their own rights as women, as partners, and as newly landed immigrants. The women are told that as sponsored arrivals in this country, they have no legal rights, no rights in general, and that if they complain to anyone, the husbands can have them deported and keep the children because these men are Canadian citizens and therefore have all the rights."
"Women who have been sponsored by their partners experience threats of deportation. More and more women have mentioned this. Their partner will lie to them and say, 'If you tell anyone, I will deport you.' Or he will threaten to tell her family and she will be blamed for breaking up the family."
"For sponsored women, the abusers always say that if she leaves them, immigration authorities will send her back. That is such a big myth."
"Refugee women often have to claim that they have a happy family, then they feel that they can't report otherwise."
" 'If I call the police, he will have a criminal record, and he will be deported. Then what am I going to do?' Women who come under their partner's refugee claim are afraid that they will have to go back too."
A participant said women should be told that they can go to Immigration Canada and explain why they have to leave their spouse/sponsor. "You can take the weight off people's shoulders." Another participant said that Immigration should make it easier for abused women to leave. The women should not have to wait until they have been physically harmed before they feel they can escape.
"It shouldn't mean that your partner has to strike you. Threats are enough. The words alone should be enough. We shouldn't have to wait for something to happen."
But there can be other complications. The woman may be in the process of sponsoring her own family back home. If she is financially dependent on the abuser, she may be afraid to jeopardize her family sponsorship by starting over on her own. One focus group participant told of a client who was staying in an abusive situation for a few more months until her mom and dad arrived in Canada.
For some women, the idea of leaving home when you have not yet adjusted to this new country is terrifying.
"They cannot fathom living alone as single mothers with their children in a new country which is still strange to them. That type of life is simply not part of their culture in their country of origin."
Crisis Response
Immigrant and visible minority women may not know what to expect when they call police in a crisis. If their experience with police in their country of origin was negative, they may not want to take a chance on calling the police here.
"If your homeland was a place where the police were your enemy, chances are, when you come to this culture, the police are not the first place you are going to look for help."
Women who expect help from the police may be surprised and unhappy when the police respond by arresting their partners. "A lot of clients come to me and say 'I don't want the police to take my husband away,' " said one focus group participant. Instead, they want the police to talk to their partner and set him straight. They don't realize that the decision to charge or not to charge is not theirs to make, that police have set procedures to follow in these types of incidents.
But what most upset the focus group participants was how often the woman is also charged with abuse. Cross-charging or dual-charging was identified as a major issue and a systemic problem.
"The women are also being charged, even though they can't do the damage that men can. Often, the woman has experienced violence many times before she calls the police. She has gone through it so often, and finally, she might pick up a coffee cup, for example, and she gets charged with assault with a weapon. He just used his fists, so he gets a lesser charge of common assault. But the women need help, not charges."
"Some immigrant women are being detained in custody for allegedly entering the country illegally. Many of them have been victims of violence in many forms, not just at the hands of a partner. When I get to meet with them and start to work with them, there are issues of language, fears related to our justice system because of the justice system in their home country, and a lot of confusion about who they can trust, who they can talk to."
"In an ideological context, the judicial system is a racist, classist and interrogative system, so its laws and legislation will always affect women more. The police are part of that system and its delivery. So when we say that police should have sensitivity training, it doesn't always work. When they are forced to do that, the woman can end up paying the price. Not only do we have to tell the women that they might be counter-charged, we also have to warn them that they might go to jail. There are immigrant and visible minority women who are going to jail because they have chosen to defend themselves. One of them had thrown an ashtray at a man and she was in jail for a month."
"It's very easy for the husband to say that the fight started because she was yelling and screaming and beating the children. Police will accept that information. They don't take the woman's call as seriously."
There was also praise for police services that have developed protocols on domestic violence response and established partnerships with culturally appropriate community support services. And there was this story, for example:
"When both the husband and wife are products of a patriarchal society, he believes he has the right to beat his wife, while she is steadfast in the belief that she must remain the nucleus of her family unit – at all costs. So she remains silent about the abuse. In one case, the husband was so certain of his power to control that he beat his wife who was not subjecting herself to his rule, then he called the police to report her, thinking that she would be incarcerated. He was in for a surprise."
Legal Recourse
There were a number of comments about how the court system works. For example, many participants talked about how long it usually takes for charges against abusers to make their way through the justice system.
There were also complaints about how little time people working in the court system have to concentrate on an individual case and little time to try to understand what the woman is going through. Many of the immigrant and visible minority women who are victims of partner assault are often confused and intimidated by Canada's court system. They don't understand how the process works, and some feel insulted by the way the system treats them.
"What we need is a woman-friendly system."
"They feel that they are not protected by the restraining orders or the peace bonds; nothing is going on. They are actually in more danger and even if they wanted to stop the process, they are not allowed to."
"The woman herself wants to shield her partner because she is not sure if he will come back home alive."
"Abused women need to be red-flagged in the court system so that they can be given the supports they need. This would encourage more women to go through with the process."
"Their biggest fear is of the system itself. There is a lack of information and how to get it.... You need to have information, and it needs to be provided in a language you can understand and by people you feel you can trust."
A major concern among the focus group participants was that the judicial system "doesn't know how to handle the abusers." Probation officers are overloaded and they cannot monitor offenders effectively in the community. Women are intimidated into recanting, and they lose credibility with the courts. There are few counselling or anger management programs for men.
However, there was recognition of some progress being made in jurisdictions which have created special domestic violence courts, with counsel and other court staff who are knowledgeable about and experienced with domestic violence issues. When victims' services are available, they can also provide valuable support.
Many abused women cannot afford regular legal fees, so they turn to legal aid for matters involving separation and child custody. But they may or may not qualify. For example, they may be ineligible for legal aid if they are part owners of the house, even though the abuser is still living there.
"How many women can pay that much to have a good lawyer? Not many."
Community service-providers understand that there are major pressures on the legal aid system. Legal aid lawyers face a burdensome caseload and they may not be able to spend much time on each case. But there were also frustrations expressed about the way some clients have been treated. "They don't understand how difficult it is for these women." On the other hand, "we have some good legal aid lawyers who will take cases for us," said one participant.
"A woman may not want a divorce, only a separation. Often, that is not understood by a legal aid lawyer; they do not see the reality, how difficult it is for a woman in this situation….and the whole system is so slow."
Some participants were quite despairing of attitudes in their own communities about the laws to protect women and children. One talked about how men in her community continued to defend a man who was jailed for having sexual relations with his under-age stepdaughter.
"They said she liked him and accepted him, so why was he in prison?
She is a child; she doesn't know what is good for her. Her stepfather is a big man, and all the men were helping him. Our community does not have enough awareness. We have to educate our women that our laws will help them and protect them."
"The government is afraid of what is happening in families…but you have people in the community denying it all the time."
"Sometimes the authorities do not know how to implement the recommendations."
Passport to Poverty?
For most immigrant families, a big part of settlement in Canada is getting a job and a steady income. If that does not happen, the adjustment process can be stalled. Poverty is not unique to immigrant families, but it was identified as a major family stressor compounding the woman's vulnerability.
"For immigrants, the stresses of living in a different country are very strong. They feel like aliens on another planet. They don't know the language. They have no financial or job opportunities. This puts stresses on the whole family."
Many immigrants, both male and female, are shocked to find that the economic opportunities they expected when they came to Canada are far from their reach. Economic issues raised in the focus groups included the rejection of credentials earned in other countries and discrimination in the labour market.
"So I have to work seven days a week. If it was possible to have 72 hours in a day, I would work 72 hours, just to survive and have a roof over our heads."
Many immigrants who are professionals feel betrayed when the qualifications and experience that got them into the country are not recognized by Canadian professional bodies or employers. If they cannot afford to spend years re-qualifying to work in their profession, they may end up in low-end jobs or unemployed, on a rapid downward spiral into poverty.
"Many of these women have been well-educated in their own countries. But when they come here, they cannot speak English and their credentials are not recognized. They need orientation to the new culture. They need help to maintain a balance between the old culture and values and the new culture and values."
"It doesn't matter how much counselling you give them, if there are no opportunities for them, they will end up in a low-end job."
"If you have no money, they can exploit you. If you have no job, what are you going to do? You end up cutting here and cutting there."
"When the women do not have what's necessary to fulfill even their basic needs, they are not going to bother to access other services."
"Many women were professionals in their countries of origin, then they come to Canada and their degrees are not recognized. That in itself is a very big fear because they now have to depend on their partners or husbands."
A key concern raised in the focus groups related to women trying to escape from abusive situations where the abuser has had all the financial control. In such cases, the women must learn to make their own way, and to do so, they need supports for adequate income, employment training and child care. Women who have been financially dependent can encounter enormous obstacles to setting up a new, stable household for themselves and their children.
"These women are without funds and often, without hope."
There are women who were "not allowed to have one dollar" by their spouses, said one participant. They have no bank account, no credit; they have never signed a lease. They are starting from scratch. How well they survive depends on the social and financial supports they receive, which are discussed next.
Social and Financial Supports
There were two major categories of concern about social and financial supports for abused immigrant and visible minority women. One was the appropriateness of the supports that agencies are able to provide. The other was the adequacy and accessibility of those services.
Social supports cover a range of services that immigrant and visible minority women need when they are thinking about leaving an abusive situation and after they have left. One service that received considerable attention in the focus groups was counselling. Counselling services may involve listening to the woman and working out with her what kinds of supports she needs, or it might require the involvement of mental health professionals.
"Many of these women come to us with their mental health severely damaged by all they have been living through – as abused wives, as new immigrants, as mothers, as isolated daughters, as unemployed professionals, as penniless women – and without a means of expressing their needs in a clear way, to people they feel they can trust."
"I am beginning to see that economic abuse has a more profound effect on women of colour and immigrant and refugee women than on mainstream women. I regularly answer e-mails from women who have been brought to this country to be a domestic worker or an exotic dancer. I do not think a mainstream woman would be experiencing those things because they are less likely to be working in the same job categories."
"They have no idea where to go for help. They are overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness."
"Immigrant women need listeners first, someone who won't judge them and who will take the time necessary to listen. With immigrant women, context is important in order to understand and be able to provide support. Thus counsellors need to shift their thinking and look at larger explanations and context."
Women with disabilities and special needs have an even harder time than other abused women in trying to access the supports they require, participants said.
Finding a safe place to stay is a first priority when women leave the family home, and the first line of defence for abused women tends to be the shelter system. According to the focus group participants, the main concerns about the shelters were a) finding a culturally appropriate place where an immigrant or visible minority woman would be able to talk to someone in her own language, someone who understood her customs; or b) finding a place at all, depending on how overextended the system is at the time.
Culturally appropriate services include supports in the woman's own language and in an environment of trust.
"If she goes to a shelter, she wonders: 'Who is going to speak my language? How will I explain to a stranger? Will they understand my culture?' "
"Women need supports available in their language of comfort and in a place that can do outreach to embrace them and develop a trusting relationship with them."
Housing and income supports are key to the survival of many women and children once they leave the shelter. Major barriers were identified, including long waiting lists for subsidized or second-stage housing, difficulties in finding affordable private-sector accommodations, and social assistance rates and rules that consign families to living in poverty in substandard housing in poor neighbourhoods.
"Politicians should have to live off the amount provided by social assistance for awhile, and see how far it goes to meeting their basic needs."
One participant spoke of "empowering" a woman with children to make her own decision to leave an abusive relationship. The woman did not have a job so she had to go on social assistance.
"She called me to say 'I think I have to go back. In the neighbourhood and the building where I am living, there are fights at my door and people are screaming in the middle of the night. There are broken bottles and blood. My children are more scared than they were before.' You feel so powerless because what can you do? There should be safe, affordable housing for her and her children."
"Violence is just more hidden among people in better financial situations. They want to save face in the community. For example, the husband and doctor who abuses his wife, she is not going to go to an agency for help."
Rising Demands, but Inadequate Resources
It was not clear from the focus group discussions whether or not domestic violence was increasing among immigrant and visible minority communities in Canada's major cities. Some sensed that the problem was getting worse, but others felt that the increase in cases meant that more women were deciding to speak out after many years of suffering.
There was general agreement, however, that more abuse is being reported. Greater reporting may mean that more women feel empowered to try to protect themselves, but it could also mean that more women are being abused. Whichever is true, increased reporting means that demands for services and supports of all kinds are increasing. Focus group participants from across the country said that funding and other resources were not keeping pace with these increased demands.
In fact, some participants said that services in their provinces had been seriously curtailed. "There is a breakdown in the social infrastructure of our community," one participant said.
"I believe that there is a cycle that occurs that supports the further oppression of immigrant and refugee women. The government recognizes the communities as special interest groups, so a pot of money is given to that community for specific services. They establish ethno-specific services, and allow the service to establish itself, usually on a small scale with a small budget. But people don't just run out to ethno-specific services; there are issues of trust and confidentiality. The project exists for two or three years, to see what they can do, but it's a band-aid effect. If it doesn't work well enough for what the government wants, then those are the first programs to go when there are funding cutbacks. Then the community has to re-establish the programs again, and often the community leaders are doing the work from their backyards or front porches – which creates more safety issues for them and their clients."
"We become a cheap source of labour."
"Social workers, because they are overburdened, do not have the time to figure out what is going on with immigrant women, for example to screen appropriately for violence and abuse. There are barriers at every turn. Cuts to social services, such as in housing, disproportionately affect immigrant and minority women. The system is overloaded. Doors that could once be opened can't any longer. There is less flexibility."
"I will work with women's agencies to see if they are carrying out their services in an equitable fashion to all groups. That is how I intervene. My experience is that they don't."
"If we look at this region, we have one organization mainly working with immigrant and refugee women and violence. The services are just not there. If I were an abused woman and I knew that my culture would ostracize me for speaking up, I would want to be certain that I had someplace to go where I could get support for me and my children. If I report my husband and he is put in jail, which is the law, it would leave me out in the cold with no place to go. This is a big deal for immigrant and visible minority women! We need to have places for them to be able to go and feel safe and secure before we recommend, suggest or encourage them to leave, otherwise, where are we going to put them? There are no services available in their language, where they can get their own food, or have moral and spiritual support…the services are so fragmented."
"Nowadays, when she goes to the doctor and says 'I cannot sleep; I have this problem; I'm having nightmares,' she gets pills for depression. Women are surviving on that, and their health is going downhill."
"In our culture, we don't seek health services unless we are dying. As long as I can stand up and work, it's nothing. We think that it costs money to go to see the doctor, and I don't have the luxury of buying the extra medicine. I will bear it until it is the last resort."
"Counselling agencies that provide support for these women are exhausted, and they cannot respond adequately to the population. The shift to short-term, solution-focused counselling is not an appropriate model to use with this population and it lacks caring."
The point was made repeatedly that fragmentation of services makes the inadequacy of resources even worse. Problems in one service system spill over into another. For example, if there are long waiting lists for affordable housing for abused women, they will stay longer in emergency shelters, which means that the shelters become overcrowded and have to turn away desperate women.
A woman whose mental health is fragile and is on a waiting list for counselling may end up losing her children to child protection services because she can no longer cope. A woman who cannot get training or child care and a job, and feels degraded being on social assistance may end up going back to her abuser, and the cycle will repeat itself.
"There is some inter-sectoral work going on, but we are still in the infancy stage. It's so fragmented. There is no coordination or integration of systems between the shelter sector and the long-term housing sector. The shelters are backed up because women are staying longer. Women of colour and minority women are not getting the kinds of services or supports they require. Some have no place to go, other than to family or friends. We are a long way off in terms of having policies and systems that are responsive to immigrant women."
"We don't have enough staff, and we need interpreters. We don't have enough funding in most organizations for counsellors and psychologists or other professionals to deal with the women."
"Women are set up to fail by the current system. Rent is too expensive, and subsidized housing is not available."
"There is no housing for women. Landlords are not eager to give housing to a single woman with kids and no income, and the shelters have no space."
The funding mechanisms for nonprofit and voluntary organizations are also an issue. Short-term project-based funding and demonstration projects provide only stop-gap solutions for limited periods of time. Cultural community groups and minority women's groups feel they are forced to scramble after whatever funding is left over once the mainstream agencies have taken the lion's share.
"We have the organizations but we don't have the economic capacities. We are so limited because of economics."
"There is a disproportionate allocation of funding to the mainstream organizations."
"I don't want to take those mainstream programs away, but there has to be some recognition of changing needs. Money has to be matched with the demographic shifts. We are the marginalized groups, so we end up in the very strange situation of being forced to compete with each other for scarce funds."
"Most services and supports are short-term – and short-sighted."
"We need extra programs for the women to be able to access."
"We need to honour the various fields of expertise that already exist within our community organizations. But to do so, we will need funding to be able to use this wealth of expertise to provide training."
Those who work to provide social supports to abused immigrant and visible minority women feel that they are undervalued.
"We are under-funded and underpaid. We have to empower ourselves, too."
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