By: Adwoa Tandoh
“I have not been here before,” says *Zainab, thinking back to her arrival in the U.S. five years ago. “I am new, and he would put like fear in me, like, ‘Don’t go out because people are bad. They don’t want to see you. If they see you, they are going to put you in jail.” This is the situation that Zainab found herself in when her husband brought her to the United States.
Zainab is an immigrant from Africa and a former nursing assistant. She had only been married a few months when her husband brought her with him to the U.S. and promised to assist her with her immigration paperwork. He said he would help her obtain training so that she could work in a hospital again. “He told me he’s going to help me with the [Certified Nursing Assistant] so I can start a job from there,” she said. But even though he promised all these things, he wouldn’t help her with paperwork, registration, driver’s license, anything that would give her some measure of independence. Zainab was completely dependent on her new husband, as she did not have a job and could not drive in this country. In addition to making Zainab afraid to leave the house, he would also sometimes lock her inside. Since she did not have a lot of information about the legal system here, she was powerless to stop it. At least not without help.
📷“It is very challenging to move forward if you don’t have permission to work, if you’re living in the shadows, if you have experienced trauma not only here but in your home country, that you’re dealing with and you’re not familiar with the legal system,” says Suzanne Bailey, Executive Director of The Multi-Ethnic Domestic Violence Project (MEDOVI).
The Maryland Women’s Law Center founded MEDOVI roughly 10 years ago, because “there are certain considerations for immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human sex trafficking that other victims may not experience,” said Molly Albano, a legal advocate at MEDOVI. “A lot of threats come from officers and traffickers that have to do with
📷immigration status and fear of encountering law enforcement and a lot of things like that.” But immigrants are often unaware of the protections and programs available to them. The Violence Against Women Act has some protections for immigrant domestic violence survivors. For example, it’s possible to apply for asylum based on domestic violence. Further, most women—even if they aren’t aware of it—can file protective orders (a court order telling a person to stop harassing and/or abusing the petitioner) against their 📷abusers without jeopardizing their legal status, whether they are here illegally or are in the midst of applying for residency or citizenship. MEDOVI helps immigrants understand these laws, assists in filing paperwork, and accompanies clients to court rooms if they choose to file criminal charges against their abusers. But their relationship with clients is not 📷limited to these formal duties.
MEDOVI’s Albano and Bailey both agree that their favorite part of the job is seeing the transformation within their clients. There is a wall of photos in their office containing before and after photos showcasing the change in appearance and attitude of their clients. Bailey recalls a client who wore a hijab who was supposed to meet another colleague for a court case where she was a witness. Bailey got a frantic phone call from her colleague who was concerned because she could not find the client, but it was discovered she had been standing there all along. Her husband forced her to wear the hijab and she decided she did not want to wear it anymore, making her unrecognizable to the people searching for her. Most MEDOVI clients find the confidence to make changes like this when they leave their abusive relationships, but few of MEDOVI’s clients go through with the full process of pressing criminal charges. But sometimes it happens—and can make a huge difference.
On April 16, a MEDOVI client we’ll call *Myra, appeared in Baltimore County Circuit Court for the criminal court case for her ex-husband who had pled guilty to assaulting her on October 8, 2018. With MEDOVI legal advocate Albano at her side, Myra sat in the courtroom for the fourth time—previous hearings kept getting postponed—but she was determined and persevered. Over the course of the next three hours, as other cases were processed and the courtroom slowly emptied, she waited patiently.
She was there to see this case through. Her then-husband, who was under a restraining order, had violated the protective order by breaking into her house and waiting there to intimidate her into dropping the case. He punched her twice in the stomach as she was holding her infant son. She called 911 and when the police arrived, they arrested her husband. He has been in jail since then.
By now, Myra knew the routine. She approached the district attorney to check in, presented the necessary documents, and adamantly repeated her request that her ex-husband be given no contact with the children. While Myra has full-custody at this time, she was asking for all contact to be cut off. Her children had witnessed their mother being abused and their father had even threatened to kill them and their mother. As a result, Myra’s children had developed a speech impediment and could only say their names despite the fact that her twins were three at the time. Once they were away from their father, they had started forming full sentences and even comforting their mother when they thought she was sad. She did not want the children to regress and lose all the progress that they had made by letting him back into their lives.
Her case was set to begin at 9:15 am, but it wasn’t until 10:30 am that the judge entered the courtroom. To further complicate things the transportation from the jail to the courthouse had gotten confused and her ex-husband was not in the courthouse when they were prepared to call the case before the judge. They were finally able to locate the ex-husband and the case began over three hours late. Her ex-husband walked in dressed in a navy-blue jumpsuit with his legs and arms shackled and quickly consulted with his lawyer before taking his place at the table to face the judge. In the end, the judge sentenced her ex-husband to three years in prison inclusive of time served, one-year supervised probation afterward, and restitution for the victim for her $800 hospital bill. However, the judge granted limited contact with the children, because he was concerned that there may be an emergency that would require them to be able to communicate with each other. Myra was not pleased and even before she left the courtroom, was already asking MEDOVI’s Albano about the process for seeking full custodial rights while her husband was in prison. Still persevering and fighting.
Both Zainab and Myra are grateful toward MEDOVI for giving them the ability to move forward with their lives. Both wish they could give women in their position more knowledge about what it is available to them. Zainab wishes she could hand out pamphlets at the airport as women come in telling them all the resources they have access to and the fact that things are different in the country and the things that they had to deal with in their countries they do not necessarily have to experience in this one. Myra wants them to know that they do not have to stay in a bad situation just for the sake of their children. She says they will be “the happiest woman alive” if they choose to leave their abuser and as we saw with her children, it is probably in their best interest to protect the people they love by leaving that situation. Myra and Zainab were very grateful to the services that MEDOVI provided them with the education and power to legally sever ties with their abusers and move forward with their lives. MEDOVI gives immigrant domestic violence survivors a voice and the power to mover forward and start a new life in the United States.
*The women’s names have been changed to protect their safety.
Comentários