Risk and Resilience of Immigrant Women in Intimate Partner Violence

“Beyond Cultural Sensitivity”: Service Providers’ Perspectives on Muslim Women Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence

“…Muslims comprise a large and growing immigrant population residing in Canada. Previous research documenting the voice of immigrant women and the trauma of IPV has indicated that their experiences are exacerbated by their position as immigrants due to limited language skills, social isolation, unemploy-ment, acculturation stress, and citizenship status (Menjivar & Salcido, 2002;Kasturirangan, Krishnan & Riger, 2004;Erez, Adelman, & Gregory, 2009;Paat, 2014). Current findings on immigration are aligned with Yoshioka, Dinoia, & Ullah's (2008) IPV framework, emphasizing immigration as a key cultural context that shapes a woman's experience.…”

Intimate partner violence among speaking immigrant adult Portuguese women in Canada

“…Like the Japanese women www.ee.usp.br/reeusp Intimate partner violence among Portuguese speaking immigrant adult women in Canada studied in three urban areas in Japan (24) , the Portuguese women in this study are part of a patriarchal society. In this kind of community, as women move toward more gender equality through employment (financial independence) and social affiliations, their relationship with their partner becomes more strained (25) . The same author also reported that personality plays a role in the ability to adapt, as stronger-willed women appear to be better at creating relationships outside the home (25) .…”

“…In this kind of community, as women move toward more gender equality through employment (financial independence) and social affiliations, their relationship with their partner becomes more strained (25) . The same author also reported that personality plays a role in the ability to adapt, as stronger-willed women appear to be better at creating relationships outside the home (25) . Schutz's concept of 'motives' is reflected by the actions that our participants took after experiencing IPV.…”

“…Social isolation is also cited for reasons such as embarrassment, shame, or fear of rejection (25) . Regardless of their reaction, our participants did have expectations: either that things would remain the same and they would just live with it; or that their actions would cause the situation to improve.…”

Resilience, Trauma, and Coping

“…A multitude of research studies on trauma and resilience have been conducted, most notably on war-affected communities (Diab, Peltonen, Qouta, Palosaari, & Punamäki, 2015;Raffaelli & Iturbide, 2015;Vindevogel, Ager, Schiltz, Broekaert, & Derluyn, 2015;Winter, Brown, Goins, Mason, 2016) and veterans (Pietrzak & Southwick, 2011;Tsai, Harpaz-Rotem, Pietrzak, & Southwick, 2012), victims of terror attacks (Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh, & Larkin, 2003), natural disasters, such as hurricanes (Pietrzak et al, 2012) and earthquakes (Ahmad et al, 2010;Feder, Ahmad et al, 2013), sexual abuse (Crete & Singh, 2015;Domhardt, Münzer, Fegert, & Goldbeck, 2015), at-risk communities with poor social support and health care (Alim et al, 2008;Heath, Donald, Theron, & Lyon, 2014;Southwick, Morgan, Vythilingam, & Charney, 2006), bullying (Sapouna & Wolke, 2013), immigrant populations (Bursztyn & Korn-Bursztyn, 2015;Georgiades, 2016;Paat, 2014), as well as refugees (Shakya et al, 2014) and indentured child laborers (Maercker, Hilpert, & Burri, 2016). High rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms have been observed in the vulnerable victims of these traumas.…”