Importance
The Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence Organization conducted a study on the Cambodian, South Asian, Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese communities in Massachusetts in 2000 As described on the Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence website, each percentage in the table below indicates the percentage of women from the different ethnicities reporting that they had been physically abused or injured by their partners. However, the website didn't provide any other description of the study sample besides the location where the study was taken, making it hard to know its generalizability or validity.3
Ethnicity |
Cambodian |
South Asians |
Vietnamese |
Korean |
Chinese |
% |
47% |
44% |
39% |
32% |
24% |
• Yoshihama conducted a face-to-face interview in Los Angeles County , California in 1995. The study had a random sample of 211 participants and was done on Japanese immigrant women and Japanese American women. Yoshihama's study reported 61% of partner violence that they considered abusive, the abusive behaviors were defined as culturally demeaning practices such as overturning a dining table, or throwing liquid at a woman .4 His later study that was conducted in 2002 further reported an estimate of 57% of Japanese women who's like to experience a partner's physical violence by their age of 49.5
• The Raj and Silverman conducted a study on South Asian women in Greater Boston in 2002. The sample size of the study was160 South Asian women who were either married or in a heterosexual relationship. The sample was recruited through community outreach methods and referrals in the community. The study found that 40.8% of South Asian women had been either physically or sexually abused by their male partners and 65% of these women who were physically abused were also sexually abused, too. Among the abused women, 11% reported that they have received counseling support services for their abuse. However, the study only found 3.1% of the abused South Asian Women who ever obtained a restraining order against their abusive partner. This rate is substantially lower than that reported in a study of women in Massachusetts, in which over 33% of women who reported intimate partner violence in the past 5 years had obtained a restraining order .6
• A survey was conducted by the Asian/Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Resource Project (DVRP) in Washington, DC, in 2000 and 2001 called Project AWARE (Asian Women Advocating Respect and Empowerment). The sample size of 178 Asian women. was recruited, using a snowball method. The purpose of the study was to examine the experiences of abuse, service needs, and barriers to service among Asian Women. The project found:7
• 81.1% of the women reported experiencing at least one form of intimate partner violence (domination/controlling/psychological, physical, and/or sexual abuse as categorized by the researchers) in the past year.
• 67% “occasionally” experienced some form of domination/controlling/ psychological abuse; 48% experienced it “frequently” in the past year.
• 32% experienced physical or sexual abuse at least “occasionally” during the past year.
• Of the 23 women who reported not having experienced intimate partner violence themselves, more than half (64%) said they knew of an Asian friend who had experienced intimate partner violence. Smaller proportions of respondents reported that their mothers (9%) and sisters (11%) had experienced intimate partner violence.
• 28.5% of the survey participants knew of a woman who was being abused by her in-laws.
• New York Asian Women's Center receives more than 3,000 calls annually from the women who are abused by their partners (including being beaten, punched, stabbed, shot, threatened with knives or guns, or denied food and money).8
Resources
- Asian & Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence: http://www.apiahf.org/apidvinstitute/default.htm
- Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence: http://www.atask.org/Resources_AFVR.htm
- API Legal Outreach: http://www.apilegaloutreach.org/index.html
References
1. Domestic Violence/Intimate Partner Abuse (DV) Screening Protocol. Retrieved from: http://www.ohioafp.org/members/resources_references/domestic_violence/dvScreeningProtocol.pdf.
2. Domestic Violence/Intimate Partner Abuse (DV) Screening Protocol.
3. Asian Task Force: Against Domestic Violence . (2000). Asian Family Violence Report. Retrieved from: http://www.atask.org/Resources_AFVR.htm.
4. Yoshihama M. Domestic violence against women of Japanese descent in Los Angeles: Two methods of estimating prevalence. Violence Against Women. 1999; 5(8): 869-897.
5. Yoshihama M, Gillespie B. Age adjustment and recall bias in the analysis of domestic violence data: Methodological iImprovement Through the Application of Survival Analysis Methods. Journal of Family Violence. 2002; 17(3): 199-221.
6. Raj A, Silverman J. Intimate Partner Violence Against South-Asian Women in Greater Boston. Journal of American Medical Women's Assoc. 2002; 57(2).
7. Asian & Pacific Institute on Domestic Violence . Fact Sheet: Domestic Violence in Asian Communities. Retrieved from http://www.apiahf.org/apidvinstitute/PDF/Fact_Sheet.pdf.
8. Eng P. Domestic Violence in Asian/Pacific Island Communities: A Public Health Issue. Health Issues for Women of Color: A Cultural Diversity Perspective. Thousand Oaks , CA : Sage; 1995:78-88.
