Experience of Abuse among Visible Minority Immigrant Women
This paper presents difficulties encountered by abused visible minority immigrant women in a white dominant society and discusses effective social work practice with diverse cultures. In a white dominant society, visible minority immigrant women face with systematic discrimination in many aspects of their life such as language barriers, under employment, paid exploitation, barriers in job promotion, difficulties in accessing services, and etc. (Hayes, 2002). Abused visible minority immigrant women are further marginalized in the new country (Lee, 2002). They are usually very isolated because of the abusive relationship and their social support system is not yet established in the new country. These women experience double jeopardises; one from their family and the other from the larger society. Moreover, lack of sensitivity and responsive intervention in the social service and criminal justice systems have been obstacles for abused visible minority women to seek help (Felson, Messner, Hoskin, & Deane, 2002; Ngo-Metzger, Massagli, Clarridge, Manocchia, Davis, Lezzoni, & Phillips, 2003). This paper will synthesize major challenges encountered by visible minority immigrant women and discuss alternatives for effective social work practice.
References:
Hayes, D. (2002). Services fail to focus on the needs of ethnic minorities. Community Care, 1428, 20 - 22.
Felson, R. B., Messner, S. F., Hoskin, A. W., & Deane, G. (2002). Reasons for reporting and not reporting domestic violence to the police. Criminology, 40(3), 617647.
Lee, M.Y. (2002). Asian battered women: Assessment and treatment. In A.R. Roberts (Ed.), Handbook of domestic violence intervention strategies: Policies, program, and legal remedies (pp.472-482). New York, NY: Springer Publishing.
Ngo-Metzger, Q., Massagli, M.P., Clarridge, B.R., Manocchia, M., Davis, R.B., Lezzoni, L.I., & Phillips, R.S. (2003). Linguistic and cultural barriers to care: Perspectives of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 18(1), 44-53.