Report: Female Farm Workers Face Sexual Violence, Harassment

On May 16^, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report detailing the results of interviews with over 160 farmworkers, police, attorneys, and other members of the agricultural industry about sexual violence and harassment endured by female migrant farmworkers. Women make up 630,000 of the approximately 3 million people who perform migrant and seasonal farm work and 50% of the U.S. agricultural workforce is undocumented. Lily Kuo describes how “nearly all of 52 farmworkers interviewed said they had suffered sexual violence or harassment or knew others who had.” The report found that people in positions of power, such as “foremen, supervisors, farm labor contractors, and company owners were abusing multiple women and often over long periods of time.”

HRW found that most women and girls who work in the agricultural industry and suffer abuse do not report it because they are undocumented and do not want to risk getting deported if they do. Even the relatively small percentage of workers with guest worker visas are unlikely to report abuse because they are dependent on their employers in order to keep their legal status.

While there are U visas, which provide temporary legal status to victims of certain serious crimes if they suffer substantial physical or mental abuse and if they cooperate with the investigation, Huffington Post reports that

even this limited protection could soon be eviscerated. As Congress debates the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, proposed provisions to strengthen the U visa have come under attack, while

Even if proposed provisions to strengthen U visas were passed there would still be significant obstacles to obtaining them, since “to apply for a U visa the victim must get a certification that he or she cooperated with a law enforcement investigation. But law enforcement officials vary widely in their willingness to certify victims, due to a mistaken belief that they are helping unauthorized immigrants ‘get green cards.’”

The HRW report, while detailing troubling realities of the abuse many migrant farmworkers face, does offer hope that their situations can be bettered; it lists ways to improve and expand victims’ access to justice. The report proposes, among other things, that the U.S. Congress pass the Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization bill, enact immigration legislation that would reduce the incidence of serious abuse of immigrant workers’ rights, and that the exclusion of farmworkers from important laws providing labor protections like the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act be eliminated.

To learn more about this issue and what you can do to help, you can read the entire HRW report here. You can also watch a video that includes an interview with an HRW official as well as with farmworkers below.

Urge Your Representative in Congress to Oppose H.R. 4970 to Protect the Safety of Domestic and Sexual Violence Victims

As Congress debates the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), domestic and sexual violence victims are in danger of losing important protections under the law.   Unlike previous reauthorizations of VAWA, a law originally passed in 1994 and reauthorized in 2000 and 2005, reauthorization this year has been a largely partisan process in both the Senate and the House.  As we have written previously, the Senate’s bill to reauthorize VAWA had bipartisan sponsorship, but passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on only a party-line vote of 10-8 without a single committee Republican voting in favor of reauthorization.  The bill ultimately passed the Senate in a 68-31 vote, with several Republicans supporting it. 

In the House, partisanship has resulted in a maneuver by Republicans that will undermine previously enacted protections under VAWA.  On May 8, 2012, the House Judiciary Committee approved a marked up version of H.R. 4970 introduced by House Republicans to reauthorize VAWA and to reduce protections for victims.  It passed out of committee in a 17-15 vote, with only one Republican voting against the harmful bill. 

Among its harmful provisions, H.R. 4970 targets immigrant domestic and sexual violence victims, who are among the most vulnerable victims because of language and cultural barriers to accessing services and, for some, undocumented status.  Sections 802 and 806 of the bill are particularly harmful.  Section 802 would limit the circumstances under which a victim qualifies for a “U” Visa, which provides an opportunity for undocumented victims of serious crimes to gain lawful status if they meet certain criteria.  Congress created the “U” Visa in 2000 to encourage immigrant victims to report crime and to strengthen the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute crimes.  Section 802 of the bill would undermine these purposes of the “U” Visa in several ways, including by requiring that victims report the crime within 60 days, a burdensome obstacle for immigrant crime victims who have difficulty accessing services.  It would also require that the “U” Visa applicant provide information that assists in identifying the perpetrator of the crime, even though it is sometimes difficult for victims to be able to identify a perpetrator accurately.  Section 806 of the bill would further undermine the purpose behind “U” Visas by terminating the visa recipient’s eligibility for permanent residence.  

If passed into law, these provisions of H.R. 4970 will harm immigrant domestic and sexual violence victims, making it harder for these women to report and escape from violence in their lives.  The safety of these women should not be subject to partisan politics. 

Please tell your representative in the House that all domestic and sexual violence victims deserve protection.  Urge him or her to oppose H.R. 4970.  To call your representative, dial 202-224-3121 and tell the operator the name of your representative.

VAWA Receives Only Partisan Support

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has never been partisan legislation. Signed into law in 1994, it was reauthorized with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2000, and again in 2005. But earlier this month, anti-violence advocates were shocked when VAWA passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party line vote of 10-8, without a single committee Republican voting for the reauthorization.

Senate Republicans are concerned about two provisions in the new bill: one that expands allowances for undocumented victims of violence to obtain special visas, and one that prohibits resource centers that receive VAWA grant money from denying services on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Most anti-violence advocates consider those provisions necessary improvements. Immigrant women have always been more vulnerable to intimate partner violence than their citizen and legal- resident counterparts, with abusers often using their partner’s immigration status as a means of control – for example, by hiding or destroying important documents. Since its inception, the Violence Against Women Act has sought to aid undocumented victims of violence through what is called the VAWA Self-Petition, which allows battered spouses and their children to petition for lawful immigration status without their abuser’s knowledge or permission, freeing them from dependence on their abusers’ willingness to petition for lawful status on their behalf.

Meanwhile, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs surveyed service providers last year and found that 85% have worked with victims who were denied services because they were LGBT – among advocates who had worked with LGBT victims who were denied services, 91% witnessed such discrimination coming from domestic violence organizations, and 64% saw it coming from law enforcement.

Despite this data, Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking Republican on the judiciary committee, claims that “advocates of this [LGBT-nondiscrimination] provision haven’t produced data that shelters have refused to provide services for these reasons,” calling the protections “a solution in search of a problem… a political statement that shouldn’t be made on a bill that is designed to address actual needs of victims.”

Grassley proposed a substitute bill that, in addition to removing the additional protections for LGBT and undocumented victims of violence, called for a major reduction in authorized financing and elimination of the Justice Department Office on Violence Against Women, but the measure was defeated along the same party lines.

This sudden partisan turn came as a surprise to many of VAWA’s supporters. One of the bill’s primary sponsors, Senator Mike Crapo – who is not on the Judiciary Committee – is a Republican, as are four of its thirty-four co-sponsors. Democratic sponsor Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said, “I’ve had other senators tell me — Republican senators — that they just cannot understand how this happened.”

Supporters on both sides of the aisle are confident that VAWA will pass the Senate in a floor vote – but we can’t take chances. Call your senators today (if you call the capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121, you can ask to be transferred directly to your senator’s office) to find out where your lawmakers stand. Tell both of your senators that you are a voting constituent, that the issue of relationship violence is important to you regardless if the person being victimized is straight, gay, transgender, immigrant, or citizen, and that you believe elected officials should not prioritize his or her own feelings toward a group of Americans over addressing a pressing public safety issue.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/14/violence-against-women-act_n_1273097.html

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/02/02/senate-panel-approves-lgbt-inclusive-domestic-violence-bill/

http://www.now.org/news/blogs/index.php/sayit/2012/01/30/more-bipartisan-support-needed-for-violence-against-women-act

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/opinion/republicans-retreat-on-domestic-violence.html?_r=3

http://www.domesticviolencecenter.org/get-help/information-for-latina-and-immigrant-women.htm

http://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/content/features/detail/778/

Undocumented Women in Custody Forced to Give Birth in Chains

The Huffington Post recently published an expose on the barbaric treatment of some undocumented women who are incarcerated while pregnant. Being shackled during childbirth is illegal in 14 states including Pennsylvania (except in cases where it is determined that the woman “represented a substantial risk of imminent flight” or “other extraordinary medical or security circumstances”) and The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy discourages the practice. However, women can “still legally be handcuffed to their hospital beds by state authorities in the 36 other states. Those women can also be denied the right to have a family member in the birthing room, or to hold their newborns for longer than 24 hours.” Several undocumented women have recently come forward with stories of being forced to give birth in chains while incarcerated.

While many immigration related violations are civil cases which would not entail incarceration, the ICE defines other immigration related violations (such as re-entry after deportation) as criminal offenses. Undocumented women who are apprehended for a non-violent immigration related criminal offense may be shackled and forced to remain so even during labor. Even though the ICE has a policy against shackling during labor, in 36 states imprisoned women are still at the mercy of the state correctional facility’s discretion as to whether or not they must be chained during childbirth.

Alma Chacon and Juana Villeges are two undocumented women whose experience of being dehumanized during, before, and after childbirth is indicative of how dangerous not having a state law mandating decent treatment of pregnant inmates can be.

Chacon was detained for a non-violent criminal offense and shackled to her hospital bed. Chacon was allegedly not allowed to nurse or hold her baby until she was released from immigration custody almost 70 days later when she gave birth in.

For Juana Villegas, going into labor while in prison meant that her ankles were cuffed together on the ride to the hospital, and that she was denied a breast pump by local authorities after she was given one by medical professionals. Without a breast pump, “she was in great pain” after she gave birth and had trouble sleeping in prison, [Elliott] Ozment, her attorney, said in a phone interview.

We have blogged before about the negative health implications of being chained during labor and the utter senselessness of forcing women to give birth in this inhumane way. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ oppose shackling during labor since this poses an increased risk of clotting due to the inability for the woman to properly position herself during labor, decreased blood flow to the fetus, interference with the mother’s ability to breastfeed her child after delivery, and delays that are presented from having to remove shackles before an emergency procedure. In addition to the health benefits of unshackling women before, during, and for a reasonable amount of time after labor, doing so presents no security risks. Women in labor are obviously a low-flight risk and no inmates in labor have ever attempted escape.

Shackling during labor is a cruel and inhumane practice to subject women to. Unfortunately, in 36 states no law prohibits this treatment and undocumented women are particularly vulnerable to being mistreated in this way. To learn more about the plight of pregnant undocumented women in America’s prisons, read the entire Huffington Post expose here.