Breaking down barriers: challenges in providing legal services for immigrant women who have experienced intimate partner violence

Abstract

Violence against immigrant women is a prevalent and serious violation of human rights and gender equality that is often dismissed. This paper seeks to firstly challenge the role of Canada in preventing and addressing violence against immigrant women through its ratification of various legal instruments and secondly, understand the challenges experienced by legal service providers in providing accessible legal services for immigrant women who have experience violence. Through an intersectional feminist analysis of interviews with three legal service providers and four Ontario cases, it is evident that immigrant women and legal service providers experience challenges as a result of language barriers, financial barriers, cultural differences, role of motherhood and precarious legal status. Therefore, this paper recommends constitutional courts and all individuals to aid in the creation of norms and movements that transcend national boundaries to recognize the violations experienced by women all across the world.