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2.5-PerezMiriamWhenSexualAutonomyIsntEnough.pdf

m When Sexual Autonomy Isn't Enough: Sexual Violence Against Immigrant Women in ·the United States

BY MIRIAM ZOILA PEREZ

Women Crossing Borders The most common way for immigrants coming from Latin America to enter the United States is by crossing at some point along the approximately two-thousand-mile U.S./Mexico border. Immigrants cross on foot, in vehicles, in trunks of cars, by wading through the Rio Grande. They have to avoid checkpoints, border patrols, fences, and barbed wire. Female immigrants taking on this in- creasingly dangerous journey face an added risk during the cross- ing: sexual assault and rape. In a 2006 Boston Globe article, Julie Watson wrote, "Rape has become so prevalent that many women take birth control pills or shots before setting out to ensure they won't get pregnant. Some consider rape 'the price you pay for cross- ing the border,' said Teresa Rodriguez, regional director of the UN Development Fund for Women.'' 1

Many of us who work in reproductive health in cities with large Latina populations see the effects of these abuses firsthand. \Vomen arrive here with untreated sexually transmitted infections that they were given while crossing, as well as with unintended pregnancies. Women are often abused by everyone from the coyotes they hire

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to take them across the border , to other men in their groups, to

officials they encounter along the way.

A May 2008 Chicago Tribune series on immigration addressed this violence: "Sometimes female migrants are sold by gangs along the border, used as lures to attract male migrants, or raped, say of- ficials at Grupo Beta, the immigrant protection service in Nogales, Mexico, on the Arizona border. 'Women are used like meat on a hook [by the smugglers] to attract more men to their groups,' says Dr . Elizabeth Garcia Mejia, the head of Grupo Beta in Nogales." 2

While there are invariably connections between the sexual abuses immigrant women face and the wider rape culture within the United States, there are also very different things at stake. What would a world free from sexual violence look like for immigrant women? Do the strategies_ employed by mainstream U.S. feminists to combat rape serve immigrant women?

Traditional attempts to combat rape in the United States have taken an individualized educational approach: Teach women to avoid "risky" behaviors (wearing skimpy clothing, drinking alco- hol, walking alone), empower them to say no, and encourage men to respect boundaries. Newer, more feminist attempts have focused on reclaiming women's sexual autonomy and pleasure as a way to combat rape. For immigrant women whose bodies are being turned

into a commodity, both of these methods fall short. Their bodies are a commodity to be exchanged in return for passage across the border, primarily because of their socioeconomic vulnerability . This is true at the U.S./Mcxico border, as well as the Mexico/Guatemala border. Women who are raped while crossing or sexually assaulted by immigration officials (or while in custody) are not protected by these preventative measures. On top of it all, immigrant women have a particularly hard time speaking out about the abuses. First of all, reporting abuses they suffered while crossing the border

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without documents carrie s with it the obvious and understandable fear of deportation or criminal penalty . Additionally, much of the

time women who report are asked to cooperate in the prosecution of their abusers, both for their sexual assaults and for their smug-

gling acti vity. They fear retribution on the part of the coyotes and other individuals involved in border crossing-and for good reason. Immigrant women in these situations are in one of the mos t pow- erless of circumstances, and few, if any, people are advocating on their behalf . The traditional individualistic efforts to combat rape fall way short when the abuses against immigrant women occur in part because of their position in the larger structures of poverty and racism. Even the efforts to empower women and ensure their sexual autonomy, which are obviously important, won't serve immigrant women until we work to correct the larger class imbalances that force them into these vulnerable positions.

When we take a step back from the experiences of individual immigrants crossing into the United States, we can see a complex institutional structure that aids and abets these forms of sexual vio- lence. First, there is the racist and classist U.S. immigration policy . Based on a quota system, the number of visas available co immi- grants from Latin America is severely limited, making it difficult to gain access legally. U.S. foreign economic policies like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFfA) have worsened the eco- nomic situation in Latin America, creating that much more demand to enter the United States .3 In response, a large black market has developed for helping immigrants cross without documents.

Things have only worsened in recent years as the Bush admin- istration has led an immigration crackdown. Primarily, this has involved militarizing certain sections of the border, planning for a U.S./Mexico border fence, and increasing border patrol along highly trafficked areas. It has been documented that rather than stemming the flow of people across the border, these actions serve

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only to increase the likelihood of deaths from border crossings, by pushing the immigrants to less trafficked and more dangerous parts of the border. 4 This militarization also increases immigrants' reli- ance on coyotes and other smugglers, who charge huge fees and often sexually abuse the women in their charge.

Human Trafficking and Sexual Abuse These abuses are not limited to women crossing the U.S./Mexico border. Female immigrants from all over the world face different forms of exploitation in the United States The Human Trafficking and Asian Pacific Islander Women fact sheet published by the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAP A WF) reveals that human trafficking has become a large black-market industry in the United States-46 percent of human-trafficking vic- tims are forced into different forms of sex work, and Asian Pacific Islander (API) women represent the largest group of women traf - ficked into the United States. 5 This trafficking can take on many forms, including women's being brought into this country with- out documentation and held captive by their traffickers, forced to work for little or no money and in substandard conditions; interna- tional marriages (also known as bride trafficking), where women arc paired up via international marriage broker agencies and then abused by their American partners; and women's being brought from their country of origin as domestic workers, and then mis- treated by their employers.

The common link between of all these trafficking cases is that the women are dependent on their abusers for their immigration status . It is the ultimate form of control, as their ability to be in the United States is connected to their relationship (personal, romantic, or business) with their sponsor. This creates the power imbalance that facilitates these abuses and makes it extremely difficult for women (and all people) to escape these situations without facing

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the threat of deportation . If a woman marries a U.S. citizen, her immigration status is dependent on their relationship . If a woman comes to the United States to serve as a domestic worker or child- care provider with an American family, her visa is cont ingent on her employment with them. All of these circumstances leave women extremely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. U.S. immigration policies are partially to blame, as well as the foreign countries that do not do a sufficient job of protecting women in these situations and educating them about their rights . Once again, we see how immigrant women are part icularly vulnerable to rape and sexual abuse because of their socioeconomic position, an issue that cur rent strategies for combating rape do not address directly .

Controlling Reproduction: Another Form of Sexual Violence Against Immigrant Women A 2006 Ms. magazine expose on sweatshop labor in garment facto- ries in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands ( CNMI ) found that some women employed there were coer ced into having abortions for fear of losing their jobs: "According to a 1998 inves- tigation by the Department of Interior Office of Insular Affairs , a number of Chinese garment workers reported th at if they became pregnant, they were 'forced to return to China to have an abortion or forced to have an illegal abortion' in the Marianas .,,6

This is not the only attempt at institutional control over immi- grant women's reproduction. In the early 1970s , medical students and community activists at the USC-Los Angele s County hospi- tal uncovered that hundreds of Mexican-orig in women in the U.S. had been sterilized without their consent. Most of the women were sterilized shortly after delivering by cesarean section. This coercion took various forms, from the women's being asked to sign consent forms in English (when most spoke only Spanish), women 's being told that the procedure was reversible, or wom en who were offered

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the operation while in labor.7 Because of the way they impact and manipulate women's sexual and reproductive lives, coercively ster- ilizing women, forcing them through economic incentives (like the

threat of being fired} to terminate pregnancies, and offering them

long-term birth control at no or low cost are all forms of sexual vio- lence against immigrant women. Racist population-control philoso-

phies are behind these policies and practices, from the myth about immigrant women using "anchor babies,, to stay in the United

States to misconceptions and fears about overpopulation among certain racial and ethnic groups.

Moving Forward: Fighting Back Against the Abuse of Immigrant Women When the International Marriage Broker Restriction Act (IMBRA) was first introduced in the United States, its sponsors wanted to name it the Anastasia King Bill, after an Eastern European immi- grant woman who was murdered in 2000 by her American hus- band. For years, Asian Pacific Islander women had been abused and exploited in these international marriages-there were even two very high-profile murders of Filipina women in Washington state in the 1990s. 8 It is no coincidence that in spite of this history, the sponsors wanted to name it after a white immigrant-or that the bill was jntroduced after Eastern European women were brought

into the international marriage market. In the end, the API com- munity mobilized against the naming of the bill, and it was changed to IMBRA. These acts of sexual violence against immigrant women,

while invariably very much connected to issues of gender and in- equality, are also inseparable from issues of class and race.

The National Coalition for Immigrant Women's Rights (NCIWR) is a coalition-led by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH), the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF), and the National Organization for

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Women (NOW)-that puts the needs of immigrant women at the center of the immigration-reform debate . While in recent years the percentage of female immigrants coming into the United States has

amplified tremendously , debates continue to center on this profile

of the immigrant: a single Latino male, coming over to work in

agriculture and construction, who sends money home to his native country. In reality, women and children are crossing the border as well in higher and higher numbers, and their needs are distinctly different from those of single men.

In addition to advocating for national, state, and local polic y changes, organizations Hke NLIRH and NAPA WF also work to place immigrant women themselves at the center of organizing for reproductive justice. NLIRH works with groups of women around the country, particularly in larger immigrant communities (like those near the Texas/Mexico border), to ensure that their voices and needs are part of these immigration-reform discussions . NAP A WF's "Rights to Survival and Mobility: An Anti-Trafficking Activist's Agenda" provides a tool for grassroots activists to use to combat trafficking in their communities. The guide outlines the complexi- ties of human trafficking and the API community, a broad-based anti-trafficking agenda, and steps for activists to take in organizing in their communities. Tools like these take complex issues and at- tempt to educate and spread awareness about the abuses immigrant women face, while leading individuals toward action. It is crucial that work that prioritizes immigrant women has their voices and

perspectives at its center . A number of laws have been passed that also attempt to protect

immigrant women from abuse. Organizations like the American

Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and those mentioned above have been an important part of the process of passing this legislation. The Violence Against \Vomen Act {VAWA) and the Trafficking

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Victims Protection Act (TVP A) try to protect immigrant women from abuses by offering them a path to citizenship if they are vic- tims of intimate-partner violence or trafficking. IMBRA attempted to regulate the international bride industry and protect women en- tering into those agreements. Federal steriJization guidelines passed in 1979 as a direct result of organizing around the sterilization abuses Mexican-origin women in Los Angeles faced have also tried to protect immigrant women (and all women) from coercive ster- ilization by mandating informed-consent procedures. While these pieces of legislation are an important tool in the arsenal to combat violence against immigrant women, they alone are not enough to protect women, many of whom do not know about these laws or have access to the legal services needed to use them.

Community activists have also long been involved in the work to stem abuses against immigrant women. As part of labor move- ments, nationalist movements, and immigration-reform efforts, grassroots activists have been fighting against the abuses that immi- grant women face. The U.S./Mexico border has been a particularly active site of resistance and organizing, on both sides of the border. Women in Ciudad Juarez have been speaking about the murders of countless numbers of women there, as have organizations and activists in California and Texas. A group of domestic workers in Maryland has been organizing against abuses by diplomats in con- junction with CASA de Maryland, providing support and resources to women in these domestic-worker arrangements. Bloggers of color have also been writing and speaking publicly about these abuses to draw attention to them. Blogger Brownfemipower 9 has written about immigration abuses in the Latina community for the last three years, as have a slew of other writers, including The Unapologetic Mexican 10 and numerous reporters and organizations.

What does a world without rape look like for immigrant women? These forms of sexual violence are inextricably linked to

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issues of race, class, and gender. Immigrant women will not be free from rape until we see economic justice, until all people have access to living-wage jobs, education, healthcare services, and safe living environments. Activist movements are restructuring the frameworks we use to organize to emphasize this intersectionality and the need for cross-movement work. The reproductive justice movement (led by organizations like Asian Communities for reproductive justice, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, SisterSong Reproductive Justice Collective, and others) focuses on how all of these aspects of a woman's life are intertwined and must be taken into account in order to effect change.

Reclaiming female sexual power means reclaiming immigrant women's position within the larger social institutions. Movements of sex-positivity-particularly those that have gained popularity among U.S. feminists-aren't enough to combat this type of sexual- ized violence against immigrant women. These movements do nor have the same resonance in immigrant communities, nor necessar- ily the same efficacy, for reasons of cultural differences as well as race and class dynamics. Sexual autonomy, respect for one's body, embracing sexual pleasure, and diversity are all well and good but do not serve women in economically vulnerable situations , who do not have the freedom to make decisions for themselves, who face the obstacles of oppression from various fronts. We have to combat the forms of institutionalized violence that facilitate these abuses; we have to work to place the most marginalized populations at the center of our organizing and move beyond overly individualistic strategies.

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