While it has long been acknowledged that women from culturally and linguistically diverse communities experiencing domestic violence face specific challenges, much more needs to be done to address this problem.
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Women such as Tuli (not her real name), the victim-survivor who featured in a special report in The Canberra Times on Friday, find it very hard to call out the abuse because of familial, cultural and social pressure not to do so.
Tuli learnt this when, as a 13-year-old, she told her family an older man was "grooming" her. Rather than coming to her aid and offering support, three relatives interrogated her for hours before assaulting her.
Later in life, after being coerced into marriage with an older man when she was just 17, Tuli found herself trapped in a relationship in which she was routinely subjected to physical, emotional, sexual and financial abuse.
It took her years to finally report what was happening. When the triple-0 operator answered the phone she was so nervous she hung up.
Fortunately the operator called back and, a decade later, Tuli has managed to move on with the help of new friends and work colleagues.
What is most disheartening is that when things were at their worst relatives and then friends from her ethnic group actively facilitated the abuser by helping him find her.
The difficulty in helping women who are trapped in similar situations is that it is very difficult to quantify just how widespread the problem is.
On the face of it it doesn't seem that bad. The 2021-22 Personal Safety Survey found 2.1 per cent of women born in non mainly English speaking countries had suffered sexual violence compared to 3.4 per cent of women born in Australia.
One per cent had experienced physical and or sexual violence at the hands of a partner compared to 2.1 per cent of Australian-born women.
And 4.6 per cent had suffered partner emotional abuse compared to 5.6 per cent of Australian born women.
The trouble is that these figures are, at best, extremely rubbery with some of them having a relative standard error of between 25 and 50 per cent.
Because women such as Tuli are far less likely to report abuse than Australian-born women they are also far less likely to respond to a survey of this nature.
While the first national study into migrant and refugee women in 2021, which found one in three women had experienced sexual and family violence, would appear more accurate, it to could well be on the low side.
Or, as the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's working paper on family, domestic and sexual violence acknowledges: "There may be an under-representation of people from CALD backgrounds in surveys due to language barriers ... and under-reporting by people from CALD backgrounds due to a reluctance to disclose sensitive information in official government surveys."
People from troubled countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran may take a long time to accept somebody from the government is really here to help them.
So where to from here?
A two-pronged approach involving providing services with the linguistic and cultural tools to reach out to women from non English speaking backgrounds, and education programs to raise awareness of domestic violence as an important issue in migrant communities, would seem the way to go.
It is not enough to put out the fires. A concerted effort needs to be made to ensure all Australians, regardless of where they are from, understand partner abuse is just not on.
- Support is available for those who may be distressed. Phone Lifeline 13 11 14; Mensline 1300 789 978; Kids Helpline 1800 551 800; beyondblue 1300 224 636; 1800-RESPECT 1800 737 732.
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