Examples of domestic violence can include:

• Criticizing
• Humiliation
• Pushing
• Shoving
• Hitting
• Forced sex
• Intimidation
• Name-calling
• Isolation
• Threats of physical harm
• Threats of deportation
• Economic control
• Verbal attacks
• Threatening to harm/remove children

This list is NOT conclusive. Abusive behavior can include a combination of these behaviors or other controlling actions not listed here.

Stastistics:

• Nearly 1/3 of women in America report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives.1
• Statistics show that an overwhelming number of domestic violence survivors are women (85%).2
• The percentage of female murder survivors killed by intimate partners has remained at about 30% since 1976.3
• In a national survey, it was reported that 50% of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children.4

Myths:
Myth: Domestic violence does not happen often.

• One out of three women has experienced physical or sexual abuse by a husband or boyfriend at some point in her life.

Myth: Domestic violence only affects lower-class, minority communities.

• Domestic violence can affect anyone regardless of race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, religion, sexual orientation, or educational background.

Myth: Batterers abuse their partners because of alcohol/drug use or stress.

• While substance abuse does lower inhibitions and may increase the severity of the abuse, domestic violence is not momentary or temporary loss of control. Domestic violence is a pattern of power and control over another individual.

Myth: If she just leaves her abuser, everything would be fine.

• Leaving an abusive relationship is not easy. Many factors,such as economic dependency, immigration status, cultural or religious perceptions, children, love, fear, and a lack of resources or a support system, make this decision difficult for most abused women.
• Statistics show that some women try to leave abusive relationships six or seven times before they leave for good.
• Studies show that violence often escalates at time of separation. Often when a woman tries to leave, an abuser increases his tactics to maintain power and control and to convince the woman to return to the relationship.
• For some A/PI women, leaving the relationship is not the issue and, in fact, her abuser may demand that she leave. Then woman is left to deal with the aftermath of having been in an abusive relationship and he can survivorize another woman.

Myth: Domestic violence is accepted in Asian/Pacific Islander communities.

• Domestic violence happens in all communities and in every social group. Culture may be used to justify or dismiss domestic violence. However, the fact that domestic violence is exists in a community does not mean that all people from that community agree that it is OK to use violence in relationships.

Immigrant Power and Control Wheel

Abusers use various tactics to control and dominate women. The Power and Control Wheel illustrates the common experiences of abuse that many women face. Domestic violence is not only confined to physical violence, but also can include other abuses such as isolation from family and friends, extreme control over finances, sexual abuse, verbal degradation, threats and intimidation.

Taken from: http://www.vaw.umn.edu/documents/immigrantwheel/immigrantwheel.html
Reproduced with permission by Bri Chomilo.
Special thanks to Domestic Abuse Project, Minneapolis, MN and the attendees of the Immigrant & Refugee Women Support Group at Pilot City for their dialog and input into the Immigrant & Refugee Power & Control Wheel. Acknowledgement is given to the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in Duluth, Minnesota for the design adaptation of the Power & Control Wheel.

Domestic Violence in API Communities
Domestic violence is just one form of gender-based violence. A/PI women can experience multiple phases of gender-based oppression throughout their lifetime.

The Lifetime Spiral of Gender Abuse was created by the Asian/Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence. It describes the different phases of oppression, starting from infancy through late age that an Asian/Pacific Islander woman may experience throughout her lifetime and is used to illustrate that violence against women is “more than physical, sexual, economic and emotional abuse; it is also about living in a climate of fear, misery, loss, mistrust, humiliation and despair.”5 The abuse experienced by A/PI women can be compounded by other factors such as race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, disability, and refugee/immigration status.

Reproduced with permission by the Asian & Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence
http://www.apiahf.org/apidvinstitute/GenderViolence/analyze_a.htm

Healthy Relationships
All relationships have various power dynamics. Healthy relationships involve shared power and no one person has all of the power, all of the time.

Healthy relationships can involve things like:

Open communication;
Respect for boundaries;
Shared responsibility;
Trust and support;
Negotiation and fairness; and
Honesty and accountability.

1. The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman’s Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women’s Health, May 1999

2. Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003

3. Marie Callie Rennison and Sarah Welchans. Intimate Partner Violence by U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, May 2000

4. Strauss, Murray A., Gelles Richard J., and Smith, Christine. Physical Violence in American Families; Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families. (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1990)

5. “Violence Against Women: A Lifetime Spiral,” 23 Aug. 2004 <http://www.apiahf.org/apidvinstitute/GenderViolence/analyze_a.htm>