Domestic violence can be defined as a pattern of behavior in any relationship that is used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner.Abuse is physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that frighten, intimidate, terrorize, manipulate, hurt, humiliate, blame, injure or wound someone.

Domestic violence can happen to anyone of any race, age, sexual orientation, religion or gender. It can happen to couples who are married, living together or who are dating. Domestic violence affects people of all socioeconomic backgrounds and education levels.

There is a wealth of information available about domestic violence, here are just a few resources.  Become aware, become involved:

• The National Domestic Violence Hotline (has a section on their website with information for immigrants)
• The Domestic Violence Awareness Project
• The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (and also here for some excellent statistics)

U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women

Women on Hunger Strike in Yarl’s Wood Being Beaten by Guards

Over fifty women are currently trapped in an airless hallway in Yarl’s Immigration Removal Centre. On Friday 5 February they began a hunger strike. Today they were herded into the hallway were they have been left there for over two hours without access to water or toilets. Four women, including an asthma sufferer, have fainted. Around 1.30 the guards came into the hallway and started to beat women. As we spoke to one woman she told us that someone was bleeding. One of the managers told the women they would regret what they have done; she called the Chinese women monkeys, and the Black women black monkeys. Four other women have been locked in other rooms for three hours, and have been told by room mates that their belongings have been packed. They are worried they face immediate removal even though their cases are still being considered. Fifteen women have been locked up in “Kingfisher”, the punishment wing.

According to women on the other wings all movement has been restricted – even those not on the hunger strike are not getting any food including diabetics who urgently need it.

Hunger strikers want to speak to the press and get the truth out about the protest.

They are protesting at the length of time they have been detained – one woman who cannot speak English, has been held for over two years. Their statement is attached. Their demands include: an end to the “degradation and humiliation of detained/foreign nationals during deportation by detention staff and escorts during flights”; an end to the Fast Track for asylum seekers which denies fair decisions, the restoration of full legal aid and access to independent legal advice for everyone who is being detained.

Cristel Amiss, Black Women’s Rape Action Project which is supporting women on hunger strike said “Over 70% of women in Yarl’s Wood are rape survivors, many are sick and vulnerable. Why are they being punished for raising serious injustices? This “kettling” tactic has been thoroughly discredited, women should be allowed back into their rooms immediately, there should be an immediate investigation into what has happened and any guard found to be responsible for injuring women must be sacked immediately”.

More information about the conditions in Yarl’s Wood reported by women recently released who spoke at the House of Commons 14 January 2010 can be found here.

With thanks to Frieda Werden for bringing our attention to this story.

Miriam Mendiola-Martinez, an undocumented immigrant charged with using someone else’s identity to work, gave birth to a boy on Dec. 21 at Maricopa Medical Center. After her C-section, she was shackled for two days to her hospital bed. She was not allowed to nurse her baby. And when guards walked her out of the hospital in shackles, she had no idea what officials had done with her child…

…All hospitalized inmates are treated in the same manner as Mendiola-Martinez, according to Lt. Brain Lee, a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. He said she had a “soft restraint” attached on one leg to her bed to prevent escape.

That soft restraint was a 12-foot-long chain…

…She says she was shackled during the two last months of her pregnancy too. Every time she had a pre-natal appointment, she waited in a small un-ventilated room with 20 other women. She had to sit in the floor. The chains were heavy and hurt her waist. Mendiola-Martinez often wept. She feared that her sadness could hurt the baby…

…About 1,500 pregnant women come through the Maricopa County Estrella jail every year. In 2009, 35 of them gave birth while in custody, according to Maricopa Medical Center records. More than 70 percent of the women detained in Maricopa County jails are accused of non-violent crimes and haven’t been sentenced yet. About 11 percent of them are undocumented immigrants. Health and county authorities say they don’t keep records on the immigration status or ethnicity of the women who give birth.

No of course they don’t keep records. Read the rest of this ghastly example of American injustice here.  Many thanks to Attica Scott for bringing this story to our attention.

GENDER ASPECTS OF STATELESSNESS
excerpted from a talk by Ada Williams Prince on International Migrants Day

Statelessness, or the lack of effective nationality, impacts the daily lives of some 11-12 million people around the world. Although the exact numbers are not known, it is estimated that half of these people are women. All displaced women and girls face extreme levels of risk to their safety and well being. This is exacerbated when Women and Girls become stateless.How do women become stateless? This can be as a result of political change or when states deliberately write laws excluding minority groups from citizenship, such as in the Dominican Republic, Myanmar/Burma, Estonia and Latvia.

Gender discrimination is another crucial factor in statelessness. Gender discrimination in nationality means that a woman can lose her right to citizenship by virtue of marriage because she has to denounce her nationality when she gets married. And Women often cannot pass on their citizenship to their children.

Other ways of becoming stateless: People may lose access to their birth records and citizenship documents when the state systems linked to registration and citizenship are destroyed during conflict or disasters. Also, families forced to flee their homes and leave their possessions during conflict and natural disasters may leave without identification, or lose proof of citizenship documents, or have them stolen.

As a result of being stateless, refugee women and girls are also frequently unable to obtain passports, to travel freely, or acquire jobs in the formal sector. This puts them at risk of using smugglers to remove themselves from difficult situations or in hopes of supporting themselves and their families.

But, there are some solutions to these problems. For example, it is important that refugees receive individual ID cards, that women’s names appear on ration cards, and that births, marriages and deaths are registered. This kind of documentation and registration has an impact on refugee return, nationality and inheritance. For example, having an individual identity card can help facilitate movement, stop
the use of detention and offer protection against refoulement.

Statelessness has innumerable consequences on children, particularly girls. Those who suffer most are stateless infants, children and youth. Though born and raised in their parents’ country of residence, they lack formal recognition of their existence.

First, refugee mothers give birth outside their home countries and in most cases cannot pass on their nationality to their children. Countries that determine citizenship exclusively by the father’s nationality create problems for children born out of wedlock, separated from their fathers, or whose fathers are stateless.

Second, Birth registration establishes a child’s legal identity and the state’s responsibility for that child. But without a permanent identity, children have limited access to health care and to primary education; and are almost universally restricted from receiving public secondary education. As a result, many young people are forced to do unskilled labor such as trash picking to survive. Currently 51 million children per year are not registered at birth.

Third, Statelessness may lead to forced or early marriage, harassment, sexual and physical violence, and trafficking. Traffickers of stateless children cannot be taken to court when children are without proper documents that prove their age or resident status.

Two specific Examples I’d like to start by talking about Malaysia as an example

In the eyes of the Malaysian government, there is no difference
between an undocumented worker and a refugee. As Malaysia has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugees have no legal status and no right to work or legal residency.

Malaysia is host to a large number of migrant workers, refugees and asylum seekers including stateless persons. Concentrated in Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding regions, there are an estimated 100,000 refugees and asylum seekers. This includes two of the most vulnerable stateless populations: Royhinga and those from Myanmar/Burma.

These refugee and stateless women face immense challenges. While they desperately need to work, without legal protection and legal status they are extremely vulnerable to violence and exploitation by employers who are able to act with impunity because the women face deportation if they go to the police.

Merely leaving the house to go to work puts women at great risk of arrest and attack. Not working at all increases women’s dependency on community members, spouses and neighbors. This also increases their risk of abuse.

The complexity of their situation makes it very challenging for UNHCR and other refugee advocates to provide sufficient protection and assistance.

Let me give you an example. One stateless girl from northern Thailand responded to a job offer in a Bangkok and ended up trafficked to Malaysia for commercial sexual exploitation in a brothel. She was eventually rescued, but then she languished for months in a detention center while states argued over where she belonged. Also, children whose migrant parents have been arrested and detained or deported may end up living and working on the street.

Let us turn now to Nepal – Bhutanese Refugees

The Himalayan nation hosts about 800,000 people whose nationality is not confirmed and who cannot access important government services without a citizenship certificate.

Some key causes of statelessness for Bhutanese in Nepal are being unable to cover the costs of applying for a citizenship certificate, and lack of motivation to apply for citizenship due to low levels of public awareness on the importance of possessing citizenship documents. In addition, many refugees who fled Bhutan in the early 90’s at the height of the refugee exodus to refugee camps in Nepal
claim that their houses and citizenship documents were burned by authorities in Bhutan.

Key issues 50% of the Bhutanese refugee population in Nepal is women. There are still a number of key issues that put these stateless and refugee women at risk in refugee camps.

Women must get up early and search for firewood both for cooking and for selling as a means of earning a living. As they venture out of the relative safety of the camps to collect firewood they are often attacked along the way, beaten or sexually assaulted.

Refugees in Nepal do not have the right to work. Without the ability to legally earn income, refugee women and girls are more likely to put themselves at risk to make a living in different – and dangerous – ways: Selling their kerosene, collecting firewood as a fuel replacement or by subjecting themselves to exploitation and abuse by working illegally. In addition, this can easily lead to women and children to fall prey to traffickers. Efforts by the international community to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence in the camps remain ongoing.

Women are extremely dependent on men, and when abused they have no recourse, or access to resources on their own.

25,000 refugees from Bhutan have been resettled in the United States and other receiving countries from camps in eastern Nepal. This is something to celebrate. But for those stateless and refugee women still residing in camps, their situation continues to put them at risk.

I’d like to outline some key actions that can be taken now to protect stateless women, children and youth around the world:

* To protect children, ensure that every child is registered at
birth, identify cases of disputed nationality and grant citizenship
when a child would otherwise be stateless.

* To protect women, disseminate the new Inter-agency Standing Committee guidelines on fuel strategies (which provide fuel and alternatives and help determine agency roles and responsibilities). This will help stop women from being attacked when they collect firewood, as well as help provide for more effective livelihood interventions.

* To protect women, undertake a series of awareness campaigns to ensure they obtain citizenship certificates or other documentation and support to help anyone who wishes to do so.

See also: Refugee Girls – The Invisible Faces of War – 48 pages.

With thanks to Frieda Werden for bringing this presentation to our attention.

(T)his is what happens when people (more than likely men, although the author of that article was a woman), decide that “citizenship” and “questions of citizenship” are more important than understanding and dealing with violence against women. The women who are violated are completely erased from the story or become little more than the vessels that carry the more important story of “how are we going to catch us some alienz?”

Point taken and it is valid not only within our borders but also in our foreign policy.  Time and time again it has been made all too clear that the lives of Afghan and Iraqi women as well as women in our own military count far less than our perceived national interest.  Please read the entire piece, it is a chilling tale.