VAWA in the Lives of Battered South Asian Women in the United States

City University of New York Law Review, Dec 2014

By Shamita Das Dasgupta, Published on 11/21/14

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VAWA in the Lives of Battered South Asian Women in the United States

CUNY Law Review Footnote Forum November VAWA in the Lives of Battered South Asian Women in the United States Shamita Das Dasgupta 0 0 The C UNY Law Review is published by the Office of Library Services at the City University of New York. For more information please contact , USA Follow this and additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/clr Part of the Law and Gender Commons Recommended Citation Shamita D. Dasgupta, VAWA in the Lives of Battered South Asian Women in the United States, 18 CUNY L. Rev. (2014). Available at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/clr/vol18/iss1/19 - Recommended citation: Shamita Das Dasgupta, VAWA in the Lives of Battered South Asian Women in the United States, 18 CUNY L. REV. F. 58 (Nov. 21, 2014), http://www.cunylawreview.org/vawa-20vawa-in-the-lives-of-battered-south-asian-women-in-the-united-states-by-shamita-dasdasgupta/ [https://perma.ccE7PY-K8MB]. 1 Naukrani is a Hindi term that means ‘housemaid.’ 2 Manavi is the first community-based organization that focused on violence against South Asian women in the United States. See About Us, MANAVI.ORG, http://manavi.org/about-us/ (last visited Dec. 22, 2014). 3 Anannya Bhattacharjee, The Habit of Ex-Nomination: Nation, Woman, and the Indian Immigrant Bourgeoisie, 5 PUBLIC CULTURE 19-44 (2002); Shamita Das Dasgupta, Women in Exile: Gender Relations in the Asian Indian Community in the U.S., in CONTOURS OF THE HEART: SOUTH ASIANS MAP NORTH AMERICA 381-400 (Sunaina Maira et al. eds., 1998). 4 By ‘mainstream,’ I mean the ideas, attitudes, activities, and practices that are disregarded South Asian women’s distinct needs under the argument, ‘you are in this country now, therefore…’ Yet, South Asian women’s experiences of abuse in the home were palpable enough to warrant an organized community based response that was linguistically appropriate and sensitive to cultural nuances. Manavi’s birth was based on this premise. By the time Manavi was gearing up to operate effectively and the selftaught advocates were learning the ropes, a daunting barrier appeared in the guise of Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments (IMFA) in 1986. IMFA was passed to balance extensive immigration based on family reunification and fraudulent marriages, and may have had men in the crosshairs. However, in South Asian communities, battered women became the unwitting victims of the decision. Stories of women being terrorized by their violent husbands who could, at whim, render them deportable residents of this country, abounded. IMFA became a tool of abuse in the hands of violent spouses who successfully thwarted the timid bids of escape by their immigrant wives by vowing to throw them out of the country in ignominy. The best that we as advocates could do for women is to help with individual appeals for permanent grounds under their feet and gather each case for some unknown use in the future. As a community based and volunteer led organization, Manavi had little financial backing to develop systematic and consistent responses to the victims and perpetrators of intimate abuse. It persevered with tiny donations from individuals who believed in the issue and minuscule grants from small foundations. Even though there were non-governmental anti-domestic violence agencies in every state and county, South Asian women were invisible in this panorama. The South Asian battered women’s movement was gathering force when we received requests for sending in stories of women who have experienced ‘immigration abuse.’ That is, women who have had to endure their spouses’ brutalities lest they are made ‘illegal’ in this country. We were galvanized into action. Manavi sent in women’s stories and testified in front of a commission that was convening meetings of community based organizations to gather information around the country. Those pieces of lives of women that we shared then became a part of the fabric on which VAWA was passed in 1994. While VAWA-19945 provided an escape route for battered immigrant women, it still required them to lay a trail of police reports and help seeking records from advocacy agencies to provide credibility for their complaints. For South Asian women, who attempt to salvage their marriages until the last moment, such a condition was tantamount to abandoning them to their considered ‘normal’ and conventional. These tend to be related to the dominant community in a nation. 5 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. §13701 (1994). CUNY LAW REVIEW FOOTNOTE FORUM abusers’ control. Consequently, the resource remained out of the reach of most South Asian battered women. Nonetheless, advocates realized that the policy was mandated to support battered women’s charges against their abusers. Even though there were serious gaps in knowledge of domestic violence practitioners, and the law enforcement regarding the lived circumstances of South Asian women and the barriers to their seeking help, these could be ameliorated by educati (...truncated)


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Shamita Das Dasgupta. VAWA in the Lives of Battered South Asian Women in the United States, City University of New York Law Review, 2014, pp. 19, Volume 18, Issue 1,