Victims caught in cultural silence

Shakti's Shila Nair says the four refuges for ethnic women are always full. Photo / Supplied

Jie Wang is referred to Shakti, the ethnic women's domestic violence support network, by police and Auckland Hospital staff.

Her upper arms and thighs are bruised from kicks. Wang reluctantly attends her appointment.

Wang, whose true identity is protected, does not want to go to a refuge because she fears for her 9-year-old son and wants his life to remain normal.

Nor will she allow the police to press charges against her husband because those at home in China will blame her for the violence and breakdown of her marriage. Her Chinese-born husband has threatened to kill her if she does not heed his demands.

Shila Nair of Shakti says women from Middle Eastern, Asian and African communities referred to her network often talk of death threats.

"Treating women badly is a cultural issue and a behavioural issue. These men have been taught to have privilege. They have seen violence or abuse perpetuated against their mothers and they accept it as normal."

Last year Shakti responded to more than 7000 women and children, many in "life-and-death" situations, says Nair. With more than 600 calls a month, Shakti's four refuges are always full.

Auckland University professor Samson Tse, who has studied domestic violence in Asian families, found financial stress and employment difficulties led to "dysfunctional coping".

Men turned to controlling and violent behaviour, holding women in "unbelievable" circumstances -"almost torture".

Both husbands and wives feared they would lose face if the breakdown and abuse in their marriage became known, says Tse.

His study of 56 Asian immigrants, in the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, quotes women saying they were ashamed to disclose family violence because it damaged their community and brought shame to their country, children and parents. It reports one young bride's wedding day warning from her father: "Only your dead body leaves this house."

In China, the tragic result of women suffering and making sacrifices is evident in the country's suicide statistics. The World Health Organisation estimates of the 1.5 million young Chinese mothers who attempt suicide every year 150,000 succeed - a number equivalent to the population of Chinese people in New Zealand.

To gain some understanding of the shame and loss of face that silences young Asian victims of violence I met Beijing's leading advocate for women.

Speaking through an interpreter, Xie Lihua, deputy editor of China Women's Daily and the head of Beijing's Development Centre for Rural Women, estimates half of China's 450 million married women in the countryside are trapped in unhappy relationships but do not see leaving their husband as an option.

"One may kill her husband, another will [commit] suicide," says Xie. "In Chinese prisons there are many women criminals. They have suffered beatings and abuse. When they cannot endure it any longer, they kill their husband when he is drunk or asleep."

In rural China the suicide rate is three times higher than in cities. "Eighty per cent of these deaths are caused by marital conflict," says Xie.

Shanghai family violence researcher and PhD student Lu Zhang says few women complain because they believe they are to blame for the violence.

Old cultural beliefs assert that women must be beaten to make them listen to their husband. This allows villagers, police and judges to tell women to "stop whining" about violence.

China's one child policy and the preference for male children traps many young mothers in impossible situations. In Guizhou province, southwest China, the Xintu Community Health Team works with mothers whose baby girls are dying for "other reasons". Programme director, Yi Zhong, says

"The most important thing I do is educate mothers that girls are also our children, and babies are good."

The need for boys is blamed on poverty, illiteracy and old cultural practices in which only sons inherit family wealth and maintain the family name.

The Chinese describe daughters as "spilled water", because after marriage they live with their husband's family and their loyalty shifts from their parents, to their husband's family. This tradition sometimes reduces women to live virtually as slaves serving their husband, says Xie.

Shakti's Nair says it is a practice that still survives in some New Zealand immigrant families from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. She says young brides are expected to care for their husband's family.

"Women are taught to accept male privilege and dominance and if the marriage breaks down they have nowhere to go. Their own family will not accept them back."

* Freelance journalist Jenny Macintyre's travel to China was assisted by the Asia NZ Foundation.