Mail Order Brides and the Abuse of Immigrant Women
[FONT=Verdana]Read more here.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana]A License To Abuse: The Impact of Conditional Status on Female Immigrants
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Maria was born in the Dominican Republic. She married a United States citizen, immigrated to this country, and obtained "conditional" resident immigration status, which enabled her to remain legally in the United States provided that she stay wedded to her spouse. Soon afterward, her husband began to brutalize her physically. "One time I had eight stitches in my head and a gash on the other side of my head, and he broke my ribs.... He would bash my head against the wall while we had sex. He kept threatening to kill me if I told the doctor what happened."[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](1)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] Afraid of the risk of deportation, Maria endured her husband's treatment for months. After she finally fled, her spouse demanded that she return to his apartment for her immigration documents. At first, she told him, "No, you're going to hit me." But then she realized that she had to go because she needed the papers. She described the consequences: "He beat me on the head. He sat on my stomach. He put a knife to my throat and raped me. Then he threw me naked on the street."[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](2)[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Sue,[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](3)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] a Chinese -national, immigrated and obtained conditional residency after marrying a U.S. citizen. Like Maria, Sue had to remain married to maintain her legal immigration status. Unfortunately, the similarities did not end there. Sue's husband repeatedly beat her. "You do exactly what I say, or I'll call Immigration," her husband warned, kicking her in the neck and face. "You need me." Sue feared she would not live. "Her story is typical of the battered immigrant women we see," explains Beckie Masaki, Executive Director of San Francisco's Asian Women's Shelter. "The batterer uses his citizenship to control and humiliate his wife."[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](4)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] Pat Eng, founder of the New York Asian Women's Center, concurs, "Batterers invariably use[ ] the threat of deportation as a weapon in the abuse of their alien wives."[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](5)[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Female conditional residents are at risk for abuse due not only to their status as women in a culture in which violence against women is relatively common,[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](6)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] but also to their position as immigrants who marry citizens or legal permanent residents (LPR' s).[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](7)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] Studies vary widely in estimating the percentage (between 12-50%) of all married women who experience some form of domestic battery in their lives.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](8)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] Whatever the rate in the general population, the percentage for immigrant women is probably higher.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](9)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] Linguistic and cultural differences between spouses may hamper communication, tolerance, and understanding.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](10)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] The immigrant wife may be economically[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](11)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] and psychologically[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](12)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] dependent upon her spouse, limiting her alternatives to the relationship and placing her at increased risk for domestic violence.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](13)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] Stresses associated with migration itself, discrimination against racial minorities in this country, poverty, unemployment, and crowded living conditions heighten the chance that a husband will become abusive.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](14)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] Forty-eight percent of Latinas in a Coalition for Immigrant Rights and Services study reported that domestic violence against them had increased since they immigrated to the United States.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana](15)[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] Therefore, conditional resident status affects the lives of women who already face an enhanced risk of domestic violence from their partners.[/FONT]
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