Bix Gabriel and Shivana Jorawar Speak About Domestic Violence
Interview
Guyana Journal, October 2006
On Saturday, September 16th 2006 Sakhi held a community mela in Richmond Hill, Queens, New York, primarily to draw attention to the plight of abused women. (See page 31) Community Outreach and Media Director at Sakhi, Bix Gabriel, and Shivana Jorawar, Development and Community Outreach Intern/ Volunteer, agreed to talk to Guyana Journal about Sakhi and its programs.
GJ: Before going into the Q & A, please introduce yourself briefly and give a background of your organization, the main personnel, your responsibilities, objectives, your plans.
BG: My name is Bix Gabriel and I am the Community Outreach and Media Director at Sakhi. Sakhi is a community-based organization in New York working to end domestic violence against women of South Asian origin, including the Indo-Caribbean.
Sakhi, meaning “woman friend,” was founded in 1989 by five South Asian women from diverse professional fields to address the silenced subject of domestic violence. Today, Sakhi has a staff of 9 (7 full-time and 2 part-time), several interns and over 40 volunteers who help carry out its mission.
SJ: I am a senior at Fordham University majoring in Political Science and am currently in Washington D.C. interning with Rep. Gregory Meeks whose district includes Richmond Hill. In the past, I have held leadership roles in Fordham University's South Asian student organization as well as the university's annual service trip to Georgetown, Guyana. I started working with Sakhi in January, 2006 as a Development and Community Outreach Intern. My work at Sakhi has been largely around organizing the Richmond Hill Mela in terms of event structure, volunteer coordination, fundraising, publicity, and making community contacts.
BG: For specific information on our services, staff, volunteering, internships, programs and other resources, please visit www.sakhi.org. If you are seeking assistance related to domestic violence, please call our helpline 212.868.6741 (10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Monday through Friday).
Mission and Vision: From its inception, Sakhi has followed a two-pronged approach in addressing domestic violence within the South Asian community:
1. We provide a safe place, support, friendship, and a full range of culturally-sensitive, language-specific services to women facing abuse in their lives; and,
2. We work to inform, actively engage, and mobilize the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean community to end violence against women forever.
After 17 years of working in the community, we at Sakhi know that while services to individual women are crucial for them to live safe, healthy lives, domestic violence will continue unless all members of the community – women, men and youth – actively participate to end and prevent it in their homes, among their circles of relatives, friends and colleagues and in the larger community.
As part of this work of partnering with community members in ending violence, Sakhi has launched a campaign in Richmond Hill called Communities Taking Charge (CTC). The mela, organized by Sakhi on Saturday, September 16th in Richmond Hill, kicked off the campaign as a means of raising awareness about Sakhi, services available and our community-centered approach to the issue of domestic violence. CTC is long-term and specifically focuses on:
* Learning about community members’ beliefs, feelings, and attitudes toward domestic violence and their strategies to end violence in their lives, and the lives of friends, extended family, neighbors, and other community members, through the use of media such as postcards as well as surveys, focus groups, etc.
* Forming a working group that consists of interested community members, faith-based and community leaders, students, and volunteers to discuss and develop best practices for people in the community to use, to intervene and prevent domestic violence.
* Creating a physical “toolbox” of “tools” that include ways to recognize and prevent domestic violence, intervention strategies, resources available, safety planning techniques, etc. This “toolbox” will be disseminated to community members as a resource for discussing, intervening, and preventing violence.
We believe that Richmond Hill is an ideal neighborhood for CTC because of its large Indo-Caribbean and South Asian population, which despite being underserved has been extremely responsive in discussing the need to end domestic violence.
GJ: Explain for the public and in general terms what domestic violence (DV) really is.
BG: Most people tend to think of domestic violence in its physical manifestation. However, domestic violence takes many forms including physical, sexual, emotional, mental, verbal, and financial abuse and, in general, one form of abuse is accompanied by other forms. In the immigrant community, we also see abuse based on immigration status. Many immigrant women are here in the U.S. as dependents of their spouses or partners. This becomes a tool for control and abuse by the abuser. For example, several women tell us of how their spouses threaten to have them deported or cancel their green card applications, if they complain to anyone about the abuse.
Broadly speaking though, domestic violence is a pattern of abusive behavior which keeps one partner in a position of power over the other partner through the use of fear, intimidation, and control. The key thing to remember is that domestic violence is not an isolated incident. It is a pattern that keeps recurring and includes in it phases when there is no abuse taking place, usually accompanied by apologies, promises of undying love and “good” (non-abusive) behavior.
SJ: Domestic violence is generally physical or verbal abuse that occurs between domestic partners but can also happen in other familial relationships.
GJ: What are some of the physical and psychological symptoms/indications of DV? In other words how can one spot it if at all?
BG: People who are in abusive situations as well as their friends and family often find it challenging to identify that they are being abused. There are many reasons for this. For instance, we often learn that all relationships have their ups and downs. This is certainly true. At the same time, a typical feature of abuse is that it is continually – usually escalating and then decreasing and then starting again. Most people facing the abuse also get mixed messages: abusers often tell their partners that they love them even while hurting them, that the control is for their own good or that they are causing the abusive behavior. It’s no surprise then that many people don’t ever recognize they are being abused. In addition, there is so much social stigma attached to disclosing abuse that many people never reveal the abusive “symptoms”.
However, here are some warning signs provided by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Does your partner…
____ Embarrass or make fun of you in front of your friends or family?
____ Make you feel like you are unable to make decisions?
____ Use intimidation or threats to gain compliance?
____ Tell you that you are nothing without them?
____ Treat you roughly – grab, push, pinch, shove or hit you?
____ Pressure you sexually for things you aren’t ready for?
____ Make you feel like there “is no way out” of the relationship?
____ Prevent you from doing things you want — like spending time with your friends or family?
Do you…
____ Sometimes feel scared of how your partner will act?
____ Constantly make excuses to other people for your partner’s behavior?
____ Try not to do anything that would cause conflict or make your partner angry?
____ Always do what your partner wants you to do instead of what you want?
____ Stay with your partner because you are afraid of what your partner would do if you broke-up?
(For more information, you can visit the Get Help section of our website or website
GJ: To what extent have you seen the incidence of DV in general and in “our” (Indo-Caribbean) community in particular? Is there any empirical (official) data?
BG: The unfortunate reality is that domestic violence exists in all communities – across America and across the world. The Family Violence Prevention Fund, which gathered its information from various government agencies and research consortiums, states that “Up to 3 million women are physically abused annually by intimate partners in the United States”. An often used statistic that came out a few years ago is: “approximately every 7 seconds a women is abused in America”.
From our end, we have seen that both the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean populations are no different from any other community in the incidence or rate of domestic violence. At Sakhi, we have averaged about 20-22 calls each year from the Indo-Caribbean community over the past three and a half years. There are probably many more women experiencing abuse in the community, but this summer, Sakhi conducted a survey of 150 people in Richmond Hill (which, of course is predominantly Indo-Caribbean) and not one single person could list an organization to reach out to, which indicates that resources are not reaching the community here. This is one reason why we organized the mela recently – so that people would know that there are indeed resources available – not only for domestic violence but also other needs (like health care access, etc.)
SJ: My experience as a daughter to Guyanese parents growing up in the Indo-Caribbean community has sadly exposed me to several encounters with Domestic Violence. More than a few of my family members have endured all kinds of abuse, as have some of my friends. While conducting surveys of Richmond Hill residents, I was told time after time by everyday passers-by on Liberty Avenue that violence against women is indeed prevalent in the community. A few of the women were even brave enough to share their experiences with abuse in the community. If these few could come forth and disclose such sensitive information to a complete stranger despite the stigma surrounding the issue, how many more of those surveyed had been abused or witnessed abuse but chose to remain silent or falsify their survey answers? It disturbs me to think of how many more sad stories would be told if women did not live in fear of telling them.
GJ: Who are the main victims?
BG: The primary victims of domestic violence worldwide are women. People often ask us, “what about abused men?” Certainly, there are men who experience abuse. However, the ratio of women who are abused in comparison to men is far greater – in general 85% of victims are women, and about 15% are men.
Apart from the primary victims, we believe that domestic violence has a ripple effect impacting not only the abused person, but also their children (if any), other family members, and the community at large.
GJ: How and to what extent are children affected by spousal conflicts? To what extent are children the causes of DV?
BG: Children are certainly impacted by domestic violence. One of the most damaging consequences is that children who witness abuse begin to believe that abuse is normal, especially when family members, friends, elders, teachers, and other important figures in a child’s life do not talk about or show them that there are alternatives to abusive behavior.
In addition, children are often used by abusers to manipulate and control their partners. As Fatma Zahra, Domestic Violence Advocate at Sakhi explains, “Although many survivors of violence may take steps to end their relationship with their abusive partners, they are often still forced to be a part of cycle of abuse when children are involved. Abusers continue to employ mental and emotional abuse tactics through the court system as they request custody or visitation with the children. If either is granted, abusers may continue the cycle of abuse by contaminating the minds of the children by making hurtful and degrading comments about the survivor while also placing children in the middle of the conflict.”
While there is not enough data gathered, research indicates that many adult abusers may have witnessed abusive behavior as children and therefore learnt at a young age that abuse gets results.
GJ: What are some of the main causes of DV in our community?
BG: Domestic violence is not unusual to our community. It happens all over the word but it is a complex issue where there is no clear cause-effect relationship. While several factors, such as alcoholism, are often used as justification for abuse, they are not the direct causes. We believe that violence is a choice that individuals make out of the belief that it is acceptable to use violence (verbal, physical, emotional, sexual) to intimidate, hurt and control another intimate partner. At the same time, society in general (television, media, social norms, institutions) informs us that the use of violence is okay, acceptable, even necessary – either explicitly or by keeping silent in the face of violence. Think of the many times we have heard friends say things like “It’s ok to slap your wife around once in a while.” Domestic violence continues because we do not stand up against it as a society.
Interestingly, things like religion, cultural orientation, spousal infidelity, drugs and alcohol, unemployment or “over-employment”, etc. are all used as excuses for abusive behavior – not only by abusers, but also by people who hear about abuse taking place. Each person’s circumstances are unique, but we do not believe that abuse is justifiable. In fact, one of the biggest myths that exists is that domestic violence occurs because of a person’s circumstances, such as being low-income, unemployed, uneducated, of a particular race, religion, etc. – you name it. Yet, in reality, we see that domestic violence occurs across the board regardless of the income-level, education, profession, class, race or religious affiliation.
SJ: Though society as a whole is dominated by men, our community is by and large socialized to accept an escalated level of male chauvinism. In our community, I have found that respect for women and their abilities is just short of absent. Where I would expect to feel safe and most at ease around my own people, I have never been more disrespected by men than in the Indo-Caribbean community. A woman's worth is rarely defined beyond her physical appeal when she is young, and then her role in the home when she outgrows her youth. In a world where women are already marginalized, our community mostly breeds us not to have the confidence and initiative necessary to excel, but to subconsciously regard ourselves as second-class citizens.
There have been no comprehensive studies on the particular origins of domestic violence in the Indo-Caribbean community. However, I would venture to say it is a result of four things: a) The idea of male superiority that has withstood time and modernity, passed down from our Indian ancestry; b) Our unique history as an indentured and disenfranchised people, stripped of dignity and effectively emasculated; c) Our current state as a new immigrant community with inadequate access to employment opportunities, higher education, and, subsequently, social mobility; and c) the high rate of alcoholism in Indo-Caribbean men that may be in itself partially a result of b).
GJ: Are present institutions such police, social services, court, churches, mandirs, masjids, etc. helpful in addressing this problem? If yes, how? If not, why not? And what should be done…?
BG: All of the above mentioned institutions have a role to play in ending domestic violence. The police and courts exist to protect victims of violence. Most people are unaware of the fact that you can call 911 no matter what your immigration status is. Domestic violence is a crime regardless of your legal status. You have the legal right to keep your immigration status private. You do not have to tell the police or a shelter what your immigration status is.
Though they provide real resources for victims, certainly at times these systems themselves are abused or they fail the people who turn to them. For instance, lack of adequate and fair interpretation in courts is one challenge that women we have worked with (whose first language is not English) have faced. Another is the lack of cultural sensitivity to both a victim and abuser’s background. As immigrants, we may also be afraid to turn to the police or seek legal help based on experiences in our home countries where such systems might be corrupt or because the police and courts here in the U.S. can be hostile. However, I do want to commend the 106th precinct in Queens, which is very proactive in addressing domestic violence.
In reality, there are not adequate services available, which is why community-based organizations like Sakhi need to exist. And while we provide key information and access to services, this is only one part of our work. We do not want to simply be a band-aid solution for domestic violence after it has occurred. Instead, we seek to reduce the prevalence of domestic violence and work to prevent it from occurring in the first place.
In this work, social institutions like mandirs, masjids, gurudwaras and churches are very important. Leaders in these institutions wield a powerful influence over their members and can prevent abusive behavior from happening. Unfortunately, we hear of stories where religious leaders do not support the victims who turn to them for help and guidance, telling them in some cases, that they should accept the abuse. We hope to partner with ALL faith institutions so that we can together speak out publicly against domestic violence, support and encourage survivors of violence and ultimately, prevent it from happening.
GJ: What are some of the services your organization offer and plan to offer to victims, batterers and children in DV cases?
BG: Sakhi works with immigrant and second-generation South Asian and Indo-Caribbean women who are survivors of domestic violence. The Domestic Violence Program at Sakhi provides legal information and referrals, mental health referrals, shelter resources as well as translation assistance and accompaniments to courts, hospitals, and other public service offices. All our services are free and confidential.
We also provide ongoing emotional support to women who call us by continuing to be there even after the immediate needs of a particular case have been served. We believe that ending violence must go beyond a client-service short-term relationship. We are not judgmental and we never make decisions for the women we serve. We provide friendship and support through our monthly support groups, events, and activities.
In a nutshell, Sakhi’s services in domestic violence situations are:
_ Translation services (Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, & Urdu)
_ Monthly support group
_ Referrals to shelters
_ Legal referrals related to immigration and family law
_ Accompaniments to court, attorney offices, public benefit offices, etc.
_ Legal information and clinics (no in-house Legal Advice)
We also offer several other programs and services to the women that we work with such as:
_ Basic and advanced computer skills classes
_ Referrals to ESL classes and job-training programs
_ Financial literacy workshops
_ Information about scholarships to eligible applicants
_ Assistance to immigrant survivors of domestic violence in accessing physical and mental health care options
_ Health literacy classes on topics such as nutrition, mental health, sexual health, etc.
(If anyone is seeking assistance related to domestic violence, please call our helpline 212.868.6741 (10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Monday through Friday). If you are interested in volunteering, please call 212.714.9153 x 109.)
GJ: What other resources are there currently available to victims, batterers and children in DV cases?
BG: If you are in an emergency situation, you may dial 911.
If you are in the New York City area, please call Safe Horizon's 24-hour Domestic Violence Hotline: 1.800.621.HOPE (4673).
Other domestic violence hotlines are:
• The National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1.800.799.SAFE (7233) or 1.800.787.3224
• New York State Hotline: (English) 1.800.942.6906 (Spanish) 1.800.942.6908
• New York State Elder Abuse Hotline: 1.800.342.9871
• New York State Child Abuse Hotline: 1.800.342.3720
• New York State Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Information Line: 1.800.342.7472
Safe Horizon, one of the nation’s largest service providers, has a Batterer’s Accountability program. For more information, call 212.577.8236 or 8233.
GJ: Do you have anything else to say? Any general or specific comment?
BG: After 17 years, we at Sakhi know that in order for families to be healthy and happy, violence and the oppression of women must be eliminated at the heart and root of our communities. Again, we do not think organizations like Sakhi are the final solution to ending violence against women. Instead, we believe that community members themselves must take the initiative, participate in dialogue, educate themselves, speak out against violence happening around them and teach the next generation respect and equality for girls and boys in order for true and sustainable change to occur. Our vision of a strong, tight-knit and healthy community is one without domestic violence. And together, with all community members (women, men and children) we believe that we can transform our community through ending violence against women. Thank you!
For info: Bix Gabriel, Community Outreach & Media Director Sakhi for South Asian Women. 212.714.9153 x 100 . www.sakhi.org
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