Needs of the Tamil women in Toronto Experiencing IPV

Needs of the Tamil women in Toronto Experiencing IPV

Introduction

Intimate partner Violence also denoted as IPV is any physical, psychological or sexual harm imposed by a spouse or former partner. Basically, IPV start with emotional abuse, and then it progresses as time goes by to more physical damage such as beating, slapping, or raping. Anyone exposed to Intimate Partner Violence faces serious physical, mental, social, and economic consequences as a result of this exposure. Tamil community is composed of immigrants to Canada, and they originate from the eastern and northern provinces of Sri Lanka. The paper focuses on exploring how  Tamil women facing IPV in Toronto meet their needs in addition to looking at some of their unmet needs.

Question: How does the community meet its needs? What unmet needs are there?

This question is crucial in this research because it will give us a broader understanding of the community needs and what the community is doing to meet its needs.

The family structure of Tamil families is normally patriarchal with clear and firm gendered roles and expectations. This implies that in their family structure, women have occupied an inferior position as compared to men and therefore causing them to have less status than their male counterparts (Hyman & Mason, 2006). As a result of inferiority imposed by their culture, the Tamil women in Toronto are found to be the most victims of Intimate Partner Violence, of which they suffer them in silence. Following the results of some studies conducted on the Tamil women experiencing Intimate Partner Violence, the results found that the victims are in urgent need of financial, psychological. These are the areas that are mostly found to relate to the abuse, according to most participants.

Before identifying the needs and how the community meets them, this paper will theorize the concept of Intimate Partner Violence using the updated feminist theory of IPV (George & Stith, 2014). Initially, the feminist theory considered women as perpetrators of IPV. The perspective supported patriarchy means the power of males. Nevertheless, the theory has changed, taking an updated approach emphasizing social justice and advocates for the elimination of manipulation. The new feminist theory embrace a variety of explanations and treatment alternatives for the couples and individuals who are in abusive relationships (George & Stith, 2014). Also, the theory seeks to hold the violent spouse account while intervening to change the couple relations.

1. Financial need

Among the women who experience intimate partner violence, the highest percentage experience financial related abuse. The abuse result from the husbands offering financial support to the families in Sri Lanka, leaving their wives and children in Canada with limited finances, which fails to meet their needs. Other men take advantage of gender inequality and spend all the wife’s paycheck, leaving the wife under financial dependency.

The Tamil women need to be informed about justice system options so that they can be assisted on how to prevent the husband from abusing them financially, or they can be referred to any available legal service provider for financial advice.

1. Psychological Needs

Tamil women are also exposed to psychological abuses through abusive expressions and behaviors by their abusers. The majority of the IPV report verbal abuse, whereby they are called weird names by their partners, describing the act as painful and psychologically destructive. The verbal abuses in Tamil community are more hurtful than physical abuse.

Tamil women require psychological services such as mental health counseling to ease the distress that results from abusive partners

1. Other social support needs the Tamil women might require include;
2. Temporary shelter for the IPV victims and their children
3. Empowerment on the available options that can help them stop IP violence and also avert future violence. There is also a strong need for the community to enlighten people about IPV and negative impacts on the family. Education programs

• They also require support and ongoing advocacy to assist them to build additional life skills that will open more employment opportunities for the women to avoid being financial dependents.

Within the Tamil community, there is less social support for women experiencing intimate partner violence. Since social support is essential in deciding which strategies the victim chooses when experiencing abuse, there is a need to enhance the social system among the Tamil community.

How the community meets its needs?

The IPV Tamil women in the Toronto region use the following coping strategy as a way of meeting their needs.

1. Seeking outside help. Most victims of IPV states that they find IPV specific professionals very helpful when their partners show no willingness to change. Nevertheless, this strategy often results in separation or divorce (Kanagaratnam, Mason, Hyman, Manuel, Berman & Toner, 2012).
2. Gaining more independence when staying with their spouses. Tamil victims of IPV says that they prefer being independent while still living with their husbands. This is the tactic they learn from IPV professionals. They are taught the benefits of running things by yourself so that when separation comes, they will be able to cope with it.
3. Being strategic. Tamil women also state that they avoid situations and conditions that are likely to cause violence. They do this to lower the exposure of abuse and at the same time help in maintaining their family unity.

Unmet needs

1. Legal needs: Tamil victims are faced with legal barriers that relate to immigration status (Kanagaratnam et 2012). The barriers prevent them from seeking legal services, making them depend on their partners who may continue to abuse them with deportation threats.

Intimate Partner Violence is the biggest global social problem, not only facing immigrants but also the citizens of any nation. This issue is relevant to me as a social service worker because we have a role in preventing IPV in the community.

Conclusion

Apparently, I believe the primary issues that are facing this community are legal and language barriers. There are language training programs for Tamil community, which makes those who are not conversant with English or French to fear speak up against their abusive partners because they are not sure how to communicate. Also, the legal barriers are preventing most of women from leaving their husbands for fear of deportation. They, therefore, endure the abuse.

References

George, J., & Stith, S. M. (2014). An updated feminist view of intimate partner violence. Family Process, 53(2), 179-193..

Hyman, I., & Mason, R. (2006). Perceptions of and response to woman abuse among Tamil Women in Toronto. Canadian Woman Studies, 25(1).

Kanagaratnam, P., Mason, R., Hyman, I., Manuel, L., Berman, H., & Toner, B. (2012). Burden of womanhood: Tamil women’s perceptions of coping with intimate partner violence. Journal of Family Violence, 27(7), 647-658.