Woman

Find Out More About Domestic Violence

This section of the website provides information on domestic violence that may help you, or that you can use to help others.

You can find out more about what is domestic violence, the wide variety of behaviors that constitute domestic violence, how immigration issues may affect you, and the law on human trafficking.

What is domestic violence?

If you are being physically, sexually, or emotionally abused by someone in your family, someone you have a child with, or someone you have dated, that is domestic violence.

You have the right to be protected from the person hurting you.

Domestic violence is when one person tries to take control over another by using acts of intimidation, threats, sexual assault, stalking, controlling money or bank accounts, and similar behaviors.

Domestic violence is dangerous, and often gets worse without help.

The lists below are examples of behaviors and show how abuse by an intimate partner abuse may progress to more dangerous stages.

Violence Continuums

Emotional

  • Repeated yelling and insults
  • Lying about your immigration status
  • Telling your family lies about you
  • Telling you that you have abandoned your culture and become "white" or "American"
  • Ignoring or minimizing your feelings
  • Withholding approval or emotional support as punishment
  • Public and private humiliation
  • Blaming and accusing
  • Demanding all of your attention
  • Threats against children or marriage
  • Degrading role as mate/lover/partner
  • Using gender myths and roles
  • Degrades your culture or religion
  • Controls major decisions
  • Claims to always be in control
  • Tells you that you are hysterical, paranoid, mentally ill, homicidal

Physical

  • Refusing to meet physical needs of dependents
  • Pushing or shoving
  • Choking or beating
  • Jerking, slapping, biting or pinching
  • Shaking or bruising
  • Hitting, punching, kicking
  • Throwing you
  • Restraining you while hitting or punching
  • Depriving you of food, medicine or sleep
  • Lacerations, broken bones, internal injuries
  • Using weapons, or using objects as weapons
  • Disabling or disfiguring
  • Murder

Intimidation

  • Hiding or destroying important papers (your passport, your child's passport, ID cards, green card, etc.)
  • Destroying photographs of your family
  • Destroying property you brought from your home country
  • Threatening persons who support her, or your extended family or friends
  • Threatening to divulge family secrets
  • Using suicide as a threat
  • Ridiculing your nationality, profession, or gender
  • Destroying or damaging your property
  • Demonstration of strength
  • Forcing you to sign papers in English that you do not understand (court papers, IRS forms, immigration papers)

Sexual

  • Sexual jokes or demeaning gender remarks
  • Jealousy (for example, assuming you are sexual with others)
  • Unwanted touching
  • Criticism of your sexuality
  • Name calling with sexual epithets
  • Forcing you to look at /engage in pornography
  • Coercive or demanding sex (use of threats)
  • Forced or uncomfortable sex
  • Coercive or demanding sex after pregnancy or surgery
  • Rape
  • Withholding sex and affection

Economic Abuse

  • Forcing you to work "illegally" when you do not have a work permit
  • Threatening to report you to INS if you work "under the table"
  • Not letting you get job training or schooling
  • Taking money meant for your family back home
  • Not letting you know about or have access to the family's income

Isolation

  • Isolating you from friends or family
  • Not allowing you to learn English
  • Not allowing you to communicate in your own language
  • Reading your mail, or not allowing you to use the telephone
  • Cutting off your subscriptions or destroying newspapers and magazines in your language
  • Not allowing you to meet with people who speak your language or who are from your community, culture or country
  • Eliminating support systems
  • Alienating your family or friends

Using Children

  • Threatening to remove your children from the United States
  • Threatening to report your children to the INS
  • Taking money you planned to send home to support your children
  • Threatening to have you deported and to keep the children in the United States
  • Telling you that if you seek help from the courts or the police, the U.S. legal system will give the abuser custody of the children

Immigration and domestic violence

In some circumstances, being subject to domestic violence or human trafficking can help you with your immigration status.

But do not contact USCIS without first getting advice from a lawyer or advocate.

A law passed by the U.S. Government called the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) helps to give you extra legal protection, and more control over your future.

It creates two ways for immigrant women who are abused and who are married to U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents to get legal residency:

The law is complicated. You should not go to the USCIS without first consulting a shelter worker, immigration attorney, or a domestic violence or immigration agency.

If you don't seem to qualify under VAWA, don't despair. There may be other ways you could get immigration status, such as a new visas Congress has created for crime victims. Discuss your situation with an immigration or domestic violence advocate.

Trafficking in Persons

Human trafficking is another form of abuse. Trafficking is a global human rights violation that is a modern form of slavery. For more information on human trafficking: