Domestic Violence against Immigrant Women in San Diego County. An Examination of Vulnerabilities and Support Resources

Seminar paper from the year 2023 in the subject Social Work, grade: 1,0, San Diego State University, course: Refugees and Immigrants in Contemporary American Society, language: English, abstract: This paper will provide insight into the hidden realm of domestic violence against female immigrants, examining their specific vulnerabilities, needs, and the available support services as well as their blind spots. Despite the increasing numbers of domestic violence cases, battered immigrant women lack the political advocacy necessary to address the issue decisively. A crucial step to achieve this is increasing and improving the financial and personnel support for immigrant organizations (IO) and existing services for domestic violence survivors.

Violence and abuse against women can practically occur in all places and in all situations they encounter in their daily lives. Typical ways to classify these acts of violence are based on the location where the violent act takes place, the identity of the perpetrator(s), or their motives. Accordingly, one can distinguish between domestic violence, violence in public spaces, or violence at the workplace, as well as between violence by (intimate) partners, family members, work contacts, authority figures, or strangers. When violence and abuse occur solely because of a woman¿s female identity, it is referred to as misogynistic violence or in extreme cases, femicide, which is the intentional killing of women for the sole reason that they are women.
The source of domestic violence against women is not always the intimate partner, it can also involve fathers, brothers, or other household members. Nonetheless, intimate partner violence constitutes the overwhelming majority of domestic violence cases against women and serves as basis of the definition provided by the U.S. Department of Justice.