The refugee experience is one of violence. Refugee women, men and children endure and survive extremes of physical and emotional violence that most of us cannot even begin to imagine. The very basis of being a refugee is that you have been persecuted in your own country and have had to flee for your safety. You can not return because of a genuine fear that if you do, the persecution will continue. Across the world, many people die as a result of persecution. The violence that constitutes persecution is either state based violence, perpetrated by military, police, or other state officials such as doctors in hospitals, teachers and bureaucrats, or it can be violence from other sections of society, such as religious bodies, guerrilla groups and sectional interests, which the state is powerless or unwilling to prevent. It includes physical, sexual and gender based violence, institutional violence, emotional violence, the violence of discrimination and exclusion and torture, and the violence of entrenched class systems and of racism.
These are the violences which refugees experience and which force them to leave their homelands, their families and all that is familiar. They risk dangerous journeys and uncertain futures in the hope of finding a place of safety and a freedom from violence and persecution.
Sadly, what is emerging now is that we must add domestic and family violence to the list of “violences” experienced by some refugees, in particular the women and children who are most often the recipients of this violence (McGinn, 2000). This can include violence against women by their husbands and other men in their families, violence from adolescent youths to their mothers and siblings, and elder abuse from adults to their parents. It encompasses violence within nuclear families but also within the more extended and informal family structures of refugee communities. Although this paper focuses on spousal violence, other forms of family violence such as elder abuse and family violence perpetrated by adolescent males are also briefly explored. Seen in the context of the violences already experienced, and the search for safety and security and a new start in life, this additional burden of domestic violence is a devastating blow that can cause serious erosion of the strength and resilience which has sustained refugees through the previous horror and formed the basis of their new life in countries such as Australia.
In order to understand the complex dynamics of domestic violence and its impact on refugee women, it is important to examine the many aspects of the refugee experience, from the acts of persecution which caused them to flee from their homelands, the journeys they took to arrive in Australia and their experience in the countries where they first sought asylum. There is currently a widespread misunderstanding of the problem of domestic and family violence in refugee communities. It is our intention in this paper to demonstrate that this phenomenon is for a large part rooted in the social disruption experienced by refugee families, the torture and trauma they have experienced, and in the emotional problems experienced in being uprooted and resettled in an unfamiliar culture (See Box 1). Violence against women in this context is more usually labelled as “cultural” and then ignored, resulting in the families treated with disdain (Pittaway & Bartolomei, 2001). Alternately, it is labelled as a gender/power issue, which fails to take into account the impact of past experiences of violence and instability.
In order to illustrate the many facets of the refugee experience, boxes have been inserted throughout the paper. Each of these should stand alone to present one aspect of the issue we are examining. Together it is hoped that they present a comprehensive picture of the complex issue.
