Anigah* says her ex-husband would change their wi-fi password every week and not tell her.
"I could never get on the internet to read up on anything," she says.
Having just migrated to Australia, it meant she had to rely solely on him for information, she says.
Lack of internet access made it difficult to see documents related to her temporary visa, which depended heavily on his sponsorship, Anigah says.
Alone and isolated in Australia, she was also fearful of being deported home to India.
"If I got deported it would have reflected badly on my upbringing, my culture, me being a woman, just about everything that has to do with me," she says.
Anigah says her ex-husband used her fear to restrict her movements, telling her the city was a "place full of crime and very unsafe".
She never travelled into the CBD in case she got caught up in a difficult situation and sent home.
"I was really fearful of that, and so I just stayed at home. I think that was a way of further isolating me," she says.
Anigah survived the relationship and is now a permanent resident working in the domestic violence sector to help others like her.
Advocate hopes research can shift the way we think
Exactly how individuals enact controlling behaviours over migrant or refugee women in precarious visa situations is one focus of a new report released today from Monash University's Migration and Inclusion Centre in collaboration with Harmony Alliance, a migrant and refugee women's coalition.
ABC News: Sally Brooks
)Lead author associate professor Marie Segrave says the research was designed to be "one of the first large-scale studies of migrant and refugee women in Australia".
"The study is the first to ask migrant and refugee women specifically about their experiences of safety and security, and critically it's the first national study to ask about domestic and family violence," she says.
Harmony Alliance chair Nyadol Nyuon hopes the research can help "shift the way we think" about migrant and refugee women — who number roughly 4 million people in Australia — as a "monolithic" group.
"We want to be able to look at deeper experiences of being and belonging in a society and one way to measure that is a sense of safety and security," she says.
ABC News: Luke Stephenson
)First time a study looks at migration control
The research was based on 1,392 online survey responses taken from September to November 2020.
ABC News: Sally Brooks
)It focused on three areas: domestic and family violence, victimisation, help-seeking and trust in institutions, and employment.
Roughly one-third of the women surveyed said they experienced domestic and family violence.
Of that group, 91 per cent experienced controlling behaviours, while 42 per cent experienced physical or sexual violence.
That finding comes at a time when Australian states and territories are grappling with a debate on how to legislate against coercive control.
The new research was the first time a study examined migration-related controlling behaviours, which Anigah says was an important step.
"Visa issues being used as a way to extend control … often gets missed," she says.
Victimisation and waning trust in institutions
The survey also asked women if they had been a victim of other crimes like theft, burglary, threatening behaviour or property damage.
"Of our participants who had experienced other forms of victimisation, not domestic and family violence, 40 per cent reported that that was a racially motivated crime," Professor Segrave says.
Those participants were more likely to live in "areas characterised by greater advantage," the report notes, and "be born in North Africa and the Middle East or South-East Asia".
Ms Nyuon says it is often assumed that those kinds of crimes occur in communities with low socioeconomic status.
"Perhaps this should shift attention when thinking about how to better protect migrant and refugee women more generally, to have a broader scope of concern," she says.
ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser
)The research also found the women surveyed reported low levels of trust in religious institutions, despite high levels of religious faith.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, religious leaders have been used as a way to distribute information to culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
But that approach might need to be re-examined, Ms Nyuon says.
"Sometimes religious leaders are used as a way of tapping into the voices and understanding the needs of the community," she says.
"This survey tells us, at least in terms of younger women, that there needs to be a far more careful approach."
The research also asked questions about perceptions of police.
"The majority of women in this sample perceived police to be just and fair," the report notes.
But that wasn't the case for younger women or women who have experienced domestic and family violence or general crime, who were less likely to see police as impartial and legitimate.
Temporary visa holders impacted the hardest
ABC News: Claire Moodie
)The research was done during the pandemic and restrictions were in place in several jurisdictions.
It found 10 per cent of respondents lost a job due to the pandemic, there was an increased reliance on government payments and temporary visa holders experienced more hardship.
"As Australia moves towards a vaccination strategy and a post-COVID-19 national recovery, it has been recognised that women have been impacted the hardest," the report states.
"Our findings also demonstrate that we need to attend to those most impacted, such as young people and temporary visa holders."
*Name changed to protect identity
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiYmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIxLTA2LTMwL2ZpcnN0LW5hdGlvbmFsLXN0dWR5LW9mLW1pZ3JhbnQtYW5kLXJlZnVnZWUtd29tZW4vMTAwMjMzMTk20gEoaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuYWJjLm5ldC5hdS9hcnRpY2xlLzEwMDIzMzE5Ng?oc=5
2021-06-29 20:00:25Z
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