ACSSA Wrap No. 9, 2011
Supporting women from CALD backgrounds who are victim/survivors of sexual violence: Challenges and opportunities for practitioners
By Annabelle Allimant and Beata Ostapiej-Piatkowski
Published by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, February 2011, 16 pp. ISBN 978-1-921414-56-5; ISSN 1833-7856 (print); ISSN 1833-7864 (online)
Download ACSSA Wrap No.9, 2011 (PDF 2.5 MB)
This Wrap aims to raise awareness of the circumstances of refugee and immigrant women who are survivors of sexual violence as they establish new lives in Australia - the lifetime journey that may haunt them, the continuing trauma they may suffer, and the personal and systemic barriers they meet in accessing support.
More than two decades of practice knowledge from the Immigrant Women's Support Service (IWSS) in Queensland informs this paper. IWSS has a history of 24 years of direct service delivery to women and their accompanying children who are from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB), who have at any time in their lives experienced domestic and family violence and/or sexual violence. In this Wrap we:
- bring to light the issues faced by counsellors and women victim/survivors as they traverse two cultures;
- define some of the expectations and assumptions that women encounter when they attempt to access support services;
- discuss how this can result in exclusion and discrimination for some women; and
- suggest good practice for service providers in relation to effective cross-cultural service provision for CALD background women who have been subjected to sexual violence.
This Wrap is primarily of interest to workers in the sexual assault and domestic violence fields. However, it will be of value to practitioners who provide support to refugee and immigrant women in a broad range of service areas including health, housing and education.
Introduction
Australian law recognises that sexual assault is a crime and there is currently a move towards framing it within a human rights context, proposing that sexual violence is a human rights abuse against the individual (Libal & Parekh, 2009; Stark, 2009; Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, 2010). Overwhelmingly, 98% of Australians agree that domestic violence is a crime and 80% rate forcing a partner to have sex as "very serious" violent behaviour (Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, 2010).
In contrast, refugee and other immigrant women often come from countries where the laws or culture do not recognise a woman's right of control over her body (Alvazzi del Frate & Patrignani, 1995). Women raised within such cultural contexts often come to Australia carrying guilt and shame about the sexual violence they have experienced.
It is estimated that the majority of refugee women and children have suffered repeated rape and sexual assault (Pittaway & Rees, 2005-06). Yet there are no data stating how many refugees and immigrant women who now live in Australia have experienced sexual assault, and how many do not access services regarding their assault. Equally, for the women who do seek support, there are no data to indicate how many do this and what type of services they attend.
CALD and NESB
The term Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) refers to people from a range of different countries, races and ethnicities, who speak different languages and follow various religious, political and philosophical beliefs. The term Non-English Speaking Background(s) (NESB) refers specifically to individuals whose first language is a language other than English. People from CALD backgrounds whose language of origin is English may be familiar with (at least some) concepts of Western culture - an understanding that comes with knowledge of the English language. People from NESB, however, generally do not have this understanding. Therefore, the needs of each group as they exist in the Australian community are distinctly different.