56 AM
We hear again and again from [abused] women who say, I cant tell my parents back home because if they find out, my younger sister cant get married, says Meghna Gozwami, client services coordinator for DAYA, a South-Asian immigrant group that provides legal and financial assistance for abused families. The name DAYA means compassion in Sanskrit.
DAYA, which runs a domestic violence hotline, has seen a dramatic increase in distress calls almost 20 times more in the last five years (from 189 calls in 2003 to 3,308 last year).
Click here to read more about DAYA.
It isnt clear if the increase in calls is due to more abuse or whether more immigrant women, exposed to Americas open culture, have felt the freedom to seek help.
But Gozwami says she is sure that the women who call the hotline are afraid not only for their own safety but for fear that reporting the abuse will shame their families.
Those working to stop the violence say part of the problem is that women, often recent immigrants, face intense family and religious pressure to keep quiet.
Many Muslim immigrant women do not even know that they are victims of a crime. Thats because in their home country it may be legal or acceptable for men to physically punish or even kill their wives and daughters for dishonoring the family.
And when an immigrant woman tries to get help, advocates say, an abusive husband often will threaten to have her deported.
Within our community we are still struggling with the issue of domestic abuse, says Hadayai Majeed, who runs the Baitul Salaam shelter in Atlanta, which caters to Muslim women.
She says women and girls who come to the shelter sometimes have been physically punished for what their fathers, husbands and brothers believe is behavior that dishonors the family.
Dating a non-Muslim or not wearing a traditional head scarf can trigger a beating.
This can be interpreted as being extremely rebellious or be an excuse for abuse, Majeed says.
Not only is this behavior culturally accepted in many Islamic countries, but it is encouraged. Last year a prominent Saudi cleric went on television to tell Muslim men how to properly beat their wives.
In the video he instructs viewers: Beating in the face is forbidden even if you want your camel or donkey to start walking, you are not allowed to beat it in the face. If this is true for animals, it is all the more true when it comes to humans
Here in America, advocacy groups say those who turn to their community for help do not always find it, in particular from some religious leaders who, although they are in the United States, still hold to cultural traditions of their homeland and do not clearly reject violence against women.
I had another client facing severe domestic violence from her husband, and her Imam kept going to the woman and persuading her to go back to her abuser, Hussain says.
Author Phyllis Chesler, who writes about Islamic gender issues in the United States, believes domestic violence against Muslim-American women, not just immigrants, is covered up by an Islamic culture that treats women as second-class citizens.
Im not saying every Muslim family does it or that every Imam encourages it or that only Muslim men beat their wives, but Muslim men have control over their wives, she says.
And monitoring the chastity of their women is an obsession, because if she loses it, or has a boyfriend or wants to marry who she wants to marry, this could be a death sentence.
The practice of murdering a woman or girl who is believed to have damaged the family honor is culturally accepted in countries including Jordan, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories
http://rightvoices.com/2008/01/31/abuse-of-us-muslim-women-is-greater-than-reported/
January 31, 2008 2:16 PM
Posted By:Pam
Filed in: National News
20 AM
51 AM
