Earlier this week, a colleague forwarded me “Surprise! Immigration is a Woman’s Issue” written by Gloria Steinem and Pramila Jayapal with the Women’s Media Center.  Steinam and Pramila argue that immigration is a woman’s issue because women and children are severely impacted by workplace discrimination, gender-based/sexual violence, a backlogged immigration system, and ineligibility for various services including health insurance.  The authors challenge the country’s inaccurate portrayal of immigrants benefiting from the resources in the United States by shedding light about how recent immigrants are impacted by systematic factors.

Some key points from the article include:

• “Many female immigrants are fleeing domestic violence, female genital mutilation, and other human rights abuses against females in their own countries.  Female immigrants are much more likely to have been the victims of violence than to be its perpetrators — just as are females in general.
• Female immigrants suffer even more workplace wage discrimination than do their male counterparts. The threat of deportation makes them fearful of reporting sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence and other punishments that are overwhelmingly female.
• Women and children make up more than 90% of the thousands of unwilling immigrants brought here every year by sex traffickers, yet such victims are far more likely to end up in prison than are the traffickers.
• The average immigrant woman is better educated than her male counterpart, even when both are in low-paying jobs. Women are also more likely to be students in English language classes – many classrooms are as much as 70% female – because they want to instruct or to keep up with their children.
• Though immigrants who are permanent legal residents pay the same taxes as do citizens, they are not allowed to receive Medicaid for five years. This punishes women disproportionately because they are child bearers and caregivers It also endangers the public in general by reducing the level of health in schools and workplaces. Nonetheless, this prohibition was enshrined in the recent healthcare reform bill.”

How do we integrate this knowledge into our prevention and intervention efforts to end sexual violence on campus?  The relevance isn’t only for institutions with large immigrant student populations, but for all campuses given that a cornerstone of higher education is to further prepare students in our increasingly diverse community.  Institutions need to, if they haven’t already, assessed their outreach, service delivery, campus security, response protocol, and disciplinary policies for accessibility to underserved communities.

Sexual violence is hugely under-reported throughout the United States.  To combat sexual violence, it is critical to work with partners and allies in order to create a more inclusive campus environment.  That community-level work, however, starts first on an individual whereby one self-reflects and assesses one’s own awareness and biases around immigration, privilege, and history.

Resources

• Immigrant Women and Sexual Violence
• National Network to End Sexual Violence Against Immigrant Women
• Multicultural Efforts to End Sexual Violence at Purdue University
• Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Factory by Grace Chang

If you have resources relating to immigrant women and sexual violence, please post them or contact us so we can share the information on our website by emailing livia@calcasa.org.

On July 13, 2010, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), the coalition of programs that document and advocate for victims of anti-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) and anti-HIV/AIDS violence/harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, police misconduct and other forms of victimization, released the 2010 report of hate violence perpetrated against people that self-identify as LGBTQ and were reported in 2009.

Key findings from the report include:

Murders at second-highest rate in a decade;

Spike in anti-LGBTQ violence at time of federal hate crimes law passage;

Economic crisis depletes resources for LGBTQ survivors of violence

For the full National Report on Anti-LGBTQ hate violence, click here.  To read the press release issued by the NCAVP, click here.

Resource

For individuals, groups, and/or communities interested in starting an anti-violence program, becoming a member of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs or if you live in a region where there are no organizations addressing LGBTQ violence issues and you need help or are interested in getting involved, contact NCAVP at info@ncavp.org or 212.714.1184. They can also be reached via a 24 hour bilingual (English & Spanish) Hotline at 212.714.1141.

The Alston Bannerman Fellowship Program, as part of the Center for Social Inclusion, is supporting long-time activists of color by giving them the resources to take time out for reflection and renewal.  For more information, click here:

“The program honors those who have devoted their lives to helping their communities organize for racial, social, economic and environmental justice. The program provides resources for organizers to take time out for reflection and renewal. Fellows receive a $25,000 award to take sabbaticals of three months or more.”

Deadline: April 13, 2010

Domestic violence is heavily under-reported across the United States.  In an effort to illustrate the urgency in combating domestic violence, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) released its report on domestic violence within lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) communities in the United States during 2008.

“The total number of cases reported to NCAVP members was 3,419.  Los Angeles, with increased monitoring capacity, reported close to 1,500 incidents. Major findings of the report reflected that the number of reported DV-related fatalities increased and the number of cases with reported police misconduct in 2008 increased by 93%. In 2008, incidents of police misconduct, reported by 2.3% of all callers to NCAVP organizations, nearly doubled compared to those reported in 2007.”

The increase in reports does not necessarily reflect an increase in violence.  Instead, when communities are informed of existing culturally-sensitive resources, individuals and communities are much more likely to report incidents and crimes to authorities.

In addition, the NCAVP also notes:

Other major findings of the 2008 report included increases in reports along many race and ethnicity categories, notably people identifying as Latina/o (100%), Multi-racial (91%), and African Descent (50%). Striking increases were seen in a relatively new category of immigration, especially people with recent visas (1700%), refugees and asylees (900%), and people who are undocumented (250%). Additionally, reports of domestic violence against people living with disabilities increased by almost 50%.

To read the full NCAVP 2008 report, click here.

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s (NSVRC) Newsletter, The Resource (Spring/Summer 2009) had an article titled, “Coping with Vicarious Trauma: Strategies for Advocates Working with Communities of Color” by Tatiana Diaz, M.A. The article highlighted the complexities that Advocates of Color face when working with Communities of Color as well as the additional issues of Vicarious Trauma associated with the multi-dimensional work they do.

To gain insight on this issue, Tatiana held various focus groups where a total of 18 advocates from Rape Crisis Centers in Pennsylvania participated.  From these focus groups, Tatiana states:

They [advocates] shared difficult experiences, particularly related to situations where oppressions like racism, classism and immigration status intersected with victimization.

From these shared experiences, Tatiana was able to categorize the experiences into the following areas: Lack of Diverse Staff, Lack of Cultural Competency Among Current Staff, Tokenism, Other Marginalized Populations, and Other Agencies and Partners. Tatiana explains that the combination of any of these:

Placed great burden on advocates by adding extra responsibilities such as translation, transportation, and issues relating to immigration.

To learn more about this article, including some recommendations, you can download the entire article here.

On September 29, 2009, CALCASA hosted the webinar on “Working with Underserved Communities” at college and university campuses across the United States.  We had a diverse range of presenters that addressed challenging issues crucial in meeting the 100% requirement of the Campus Grant.

Rachel Griffin, Assistant Professor at Southern Illinois University, provided a framework of understanding oppression and intersecting identities, specifically at college campuses.

Sandra Harrell, Associate Director of Accessing Safety Initiative at Vera Institute of Justice, addressed the challenges students with disabilities and Deaf students encounter as sexual assault survivors.

Trish Duffett, Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Counselor/Advocate at the New York City Anti-Violence Project discussed challenges Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Intersex/Queer/Questioning (LGBTIQ)-identifying students face as a diverse community at high risk of violence.  All three speakers presented various recommendations that institutions can do when promoting anti-oppression in the designing and implementation of prevention and interventions.

Considering the range of familiarity participants have relating to working with underserved communities, the aim of today’s webinar was to serve as a springboard for grantees to discuss and examine how their respective campuses address meeting the needs and resources of diverse communities in the struggle to end campus violence.

Below you will find the September 2009 Webinar PowerPoint presentation, transcript of the text chat, and resources from today’s presenters.  NOTE: The audio recording will be available soon.  If you have any difficulty accessing the files, please contact Livia Rojas at livia@calcasa.org.

CALCASA Campus September 2009 Webinar

Sept 2009 Webinar Transcript

Dr. Rachel Griffin Framework on Working with Underserved Communities

CALCASA Campus Sept 2009 Webinar Resource Sheet

Student demographics at colleges/universities across the United States vary from campus to campus. In an effort to outreach and provide more culturally relevant services that relate to violence against women, CALCASA’s webinar on “Working With Underserved Communities” aims to highlight the complexity surrounding intersecting identities and the urgency of building capacity amongst providers by having experts in the field address the challenges and discuss how campuses are serving diverse needs.

CALCASA’s next webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, September 29, 2009.  Please check the Project Directors listserv for registration details. If you did not receive an email, please contact Livia at livia@calcasa.org.

Presenters include:

• Rachel Griffin, Assistant Professor at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in Department of Speech Communication;
• Sandra Harrell, Director of Accessing Safety Initiative at Vera Institute of Justice; and
• Patricia Duffett, Sexual Assault Counselor/Advocate at Anti-Violence Project