Keywords

Introduction

While this book focuses on the intersection of DFV with a global pandemic, this chapter illuminates the importance of capturing the complex intersection with broader policy responses amid the first stages of the pandemic. There is an important body of literature, recognising the specificity of migrant and refugee experiences of DFV pre-pandemic that crosses international boundaries, which identifies how—across pre-migration, during migration and post-settlement—experiences can exacerbate both the potential to experience gender-based violence broadly and also DFV specifically (see Abraham, 2000; Anitha & Gill, 2022; Menjíva & Perreira, 2019; Sabri et al., 2020, Segrave, 2021; Vasil, 2023). The early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, over the course of 2020, drew significant attention to the specificity of temporariness as a structural position that was connected to inequality and risk—across every context, including financial and labour conditions, exposure to the virus and access to health care, and in relation to DFV. In this chapter, these issues are brought together to highlight how the pandemic intensified, in many ways, the specific structural inequity experienced by temporary migrantsFootnote 1 experiencing DFV via a study of 100 temporary migrant victim-survivor case files in Victoria, Australia. Weaved into these findings is the alignment with other international research that has also focused on the specificity of migrant and refugee experiences of DFV during the COVID-19 pandemic. In understanding and responding to the known risks of increased and intensified DFV in crises, a view to broader social inequality that is sustained by other systems and structures (for example labour, migration, health and welfare systems) must be cast in order to ensure that any effort or commitment to support women’s safety enables all women, regardless of migration status, to have access to support and safety.

Migrant Women, Domestic and Family Violence and Temporary Visa Status

There is significant international evidence that illuminates the importance of specificity in understanding migrant and refugee experiences of DFV. While the terminology varies, there is significant work that captures how women from migrant and refugee backgrounds are disproportionately impacted by DFV in countries of destination (Amanor-Boadu et al., 2012; Sabri et al., 2020; Segrave, 2017, 2021; Vaughan et al., 2015). A major focus in both research and advocacy for migrant and refugee women is the numerous barriers to accessing support, that are at once specific to personal circumstances (for example, proficiency in the main language spoken in the country of destination, social isolation and access to mainstream services) and more critically, as many have argued, a broader reflection of the structural inequality experienced by migrant and refugee women (Abraham, 2000; Erez et al., 2009; Pearce & Sokoloff, 2013; Sabri et al., 2018, 2020). A key concern internationally is the recognition that temporary non-citizens are either at greater risk or, as Vasil (2023) argues, greater precarity, because of their temporary status. This concern is grounded in an intersectional analysis, following the work of Crenshaw (1991), that calls us to attend to how structural barriers reinforce, reproduce and sustain women’s inequality. In this case, gender and migration status are key (Anitha et al., 2018; Pearce & Sokoloff, 2013).

Research focused specifically on temporary non-citizen status and DFV has demonstrated how migration systems interact with sustaining conditions within which perpetrators have greater power and leverage over women, and which countries refuse to accept responsibility to ensure the safety of victim-survivors (Barlow & Walklate, 2022; Segrave, 2021; Segrave et al., 2019). While it is not possible to clearly establish that the prevalence of DFV is greater for temporary non-citizens (Vaughan et al., 2015), there is research that points to the prevalence in relation to migrant women. For example, in 2021, the Immigrant Council of Ireland released a report finding that migrant women are increasingly reporting experiences of DFV, with a 12% increase from 2020 to 2021 (np). In another setting, Anitha and Gill (2022, p. 462) noted that data has demonstrated that racially minoritised populations experience higher rates of domestic violence and abuse (DVA) than their white counterparts in England and Wales.

In Australia, a 2020 national survey of migrant and refugee women found that temporary migrants reported proportionately higher levels of DFV compared to the larger group of migrant women in the study (Segrave et al., 2021, p. 9). While not a generalisable study, this study pointed particularly to the key impact of migration-related abuse (Segrave et al., 2021). Within the broad group of temporary migrants, there are also subgroups where visa status is connected to slightly different conditions and impacts. This varies, of course, internationally, but it is recognised that there can be specific structural and administrative issues that impact women differently if, for example, they hold partner visas (Anitha, 2008, 2011; Segrave, 2017) or student visas (Forbes-Mewett & McCulloch, 2016). The type of visa has different impacts, including the support options in the context of DFV. As noted by Vasil (2023) and Segrave et al. (2019, 2021), in Australia the type of temporary visa is important to understanding the specificity of how the migration system operates as a structural barrier. Key researchers have recognised that these complexities around temporary non-citizenship, which impact a subgroup of migrant and refugee women, are reproducing and reinforcing the idea that this group of victim-survivors deserve less as non-members of the society (see Fraser, 2000). Vasil (2023) draws attention to the importance of recognising that the ‘politics of immigration control and its intersections with sexism, racism, and neoliberalism’ are an important context that lay the ground for sustaining women’s precarity (see also Anitha, 2011; Jayasuriya-Illesinghe, 2018). For this chapter, it is important to extend this critique to recognise that it is not just in the context of DFV that temporary non-citizens are structurally disadvantaged, but also in the broader context of labour conditions and welfare support. In the context of the response to COVID-19 in Australia—as elsewhere around the world—the clear demarcation of temporary non-citizens excluded from various support measures was demonstrable, with consequences that have only been seen, to date, to a limited extent.

Temporary Migrants, COVID-19 Responses and the Known and Unknown Impact of Policy

Within the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the focus on temporary migrants was sharpened in a range of ways. The first was the global issue of those who were grounded and unable to leave their places of residence and/or places they were visiting with ease, as borders rapidly closed and entry and exit requirements became both limited and extremely bureaucratic. The second concern regards labour conditions. Globally, the response to the pandemic and the domino of shutdowns of industry that occurred across many jurisdictions illuminated the very specific precariousness of migrant workers (see Anner, 2020; Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2020). Alongside fears regarding contracts being cancelled and the economic impacts of this felt by migrant workers, were concerns regarding those whose labour was in high demand and who needed to work but would be doing so in conditions that entailed higher risks of infection from COVID-19 (Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2020). Rai et al. (2020, pp. 86–87) noted that, in the context of the US:

immigrants… comprise large proportions of essential workers in industries that remain open during the crisis (Chishti & Bolter, 2020; Chishti & Pierce, 2020; Gelatt, 2020). Not only are they among those who work in the grocery stores and pharmacies that have remained open, but they are also among those most critical to the pandemic response… While their representation in essential industries means they must work during the pandemic, immigrants are also less likely to have health insurance (Narea, 2020a; KFF.Org, 2020). Consequently, if they become ill, they may be less likely to get treatment.

For temporary workers, in particular, a major concern during the early days of the pandemic was precarious and casualised labour. In Australia, in March 2020, the nationally imposed lockdown and stay-at-home orders saw all non-essential workers having to either work from home or cease work altogether, as many businesses closed for the duration of the lockdown period. As Berg and Farbenblum (2020) write:

Many temporary visa holders lost their jobs in heavily casualised industries such as hospitality and retail ... Australia is home to over 1 million temporary visa holders, most of whom have work rights. The widespread job loss had a devastating financial impact on these temporary migrants, including international students, backpackers, graduates, sponsored workers and refugees, among others. At the same time, many international students who were financially reliant on family found themselves with less or no support due to the financial impact of the pandemic in their home countries. (Berg & Farbenblum, 2020, p. 6)

As Berg and Farbenblum (2020) noted, the impact on temporary migrants was not just their situation in Australia but the situation of their families in other parts of the world, and the significant interconnecting stressors of separation, immobility and financial pressure. The Australian Commonwealth Government, following some pressure, stepped in to support Australian workers with key financial support packages during the first period of lockdowns across Australia for individuals who were without work and for businesses to retain staff who they would otherwise have to let go as a result of business closure (Senate Select Committee on COVID-19, 2020, pp. 74–75). However, temporary migrants were excluded from accessing these support packages. As Berg and Farbenblum (2020, p. 6) note, this put Australia at odds with other nations such as the UK, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland, who included temporary migrants in their subsidy packages. In their survey-based study of more than 6000 temporary visa holders, Berg and Farbenblum (2020, pp. 8–9) found that many temporary migrants suffered significant loss of income and could not meet basic living needs, and that their wellbeing at home and work was significantly compromised.

Within the debate and discussion regarding the impacts of the decision around financial support provisions, there was limited attention paid to the intersection of this refusal to support temporary migrants financially, and the ways this would potentially exacerbate and intensify DFV. In Australia, at the federal level, the two issues of concern around the so-called ‘shadow pandemic’ and the refusal to provide any support to temporary migrants—leaving them without any financial safety net—were siloed. There was limited public conversation about the ways in which policy decisions to withhold financial support can have deep and serious impacts on the prevalence and severity of DFV, despite the fact that it is well understood that both financial stressors and major disasters (for example floods and fire) impact DFV (see for example First et al., 2017). However, both in Australia and internationally, researchers were concerned with the ways in which pandemic conditions would specifically impact temporary visa holders, and migrant women more broadly. Rai et al. (2020), for example, noted in the background of their study in the US:

Given their unique positionality in the U.S., the intersectional discussion about the impact of this pandemic on immigrants and issues of family violence is salient. The position of some groups of immigrant women is even more precarious due to the increased dependency on their spouse/partner for emotional, economic and immigration-related reasons. (Rai et al., 2020, p. 84)

The research conducted by a range of scholars internationally made clear the importance of a structural analysis to recognise how policy decisions have differential impacts across a population, and the importance of undertaking close analysis of this for future advocacy and preparedness. The next section provides background on the case study that forms the focus of the chapter, bringing into discussion the international research that has also produced important parallel findings on these issues in other jurisdictions.

COVID-19 Lockdowns, Temporary Visa Holders and DFV Specialist Service Provision: A Case Study of Victoria, Australia

In the context of research happening internationally that continues to monitor the ongoing gendered impacts of the pandemic, this chapter now focuses on a study undertaken in the first stage of the pandemic and the first lockdown in Victoria (31 March 2020–2012 May 2020). Following the methodology of a larger study undertaken in 2017 (see Segrave, 2017, 2018, 2021; Segrave et al., 2019), which focused on 300 case files of temporary visa holders accessing a specialist domestic and DFV in Victoria (inTouch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence), this study undertook a rapid review of case files related to cases that had come forward during the first lockdown in Victoria (Segrave & Pfitzner, 2020). The specific needs of women seeking help from this service were looked at in the study, examining their situations and circumstances and, as much as possible, the way in which COVID-19 was impacting their lives in the context of DFV.Footnote 2 The analysis revealed the ways in which COVID-19 conditions intensified the impact of exclusion in many ways for temporary visa holders experiencing DFV.

Temporary Migrants and DFV: Key Findings

Generally, the service involved in the study provide services to around 40% of clients who are temporary migrants (Segrave, 2017). During the period of March 2020, however, 53% of their clients were temporary visa holders, in April 2020 54% and in May 2020 39% (Segrave & Pfitzner, 2020, p. 16). There was no clear pattern or reason for this: while this was benchmarked against the previous year, the time frame was not long enough to monitor any patterns, and the reasons for numbers changing were difficult to interpret both during the COVID-19 pandemic and also before it. There were significant concerns at the time in Australia—as there were internationally—that women generally would be less able to come forward to seek assistance in the context of lockdowns (see Segrave & Pfitzner, 2020). What was revealed was mixed and requires further trend and interview data to interrogate. Many women did seek out help in part because the economic and other impacts of COVID-19 increased the challenges they were experiencing, but the numbers of clients seeking support fluctuated in a way that did not reflect a neat pattern aligned with the COVID-19 period of lockdown.

Of the 100 women in this study, the majority came from India, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Pakistan. Across the group of 100 women, 29 different languages other than English were spoken at home, and proficiency in English varied: 45% required an interpreter when speaking with their case manager. Of the women seeking support, 54% had dependent children. None of the clients in this cohort identified as LGBTQI+. In relation to their visa status, it is important to understand that the type of visa women hold is specifically connected to the available support and resourcing as detailed elsewhere (Segrave, 2017; Segrave & Pfitzner, 2020; Vasil, 2022). In this study, 33% held a partner visa (Segrave & Pfitzner, 2020, pp. 18–19). Women who hold partner visas and are on a pathway to permanency can potentially apply to Home Affairs (Immigration) to access the family violence provision to still access permanent residency if they can demonstrate that their relationship was genuine and that the relationship broke down due to family violence (Segrave, 2017). Permanent residency allows greater access to welfare and housing support, in particular. For the 66% of women in this study holding other kinds of temporary visas, that safety net is unavailable. They are far more restricted in relation to the economic, welfare and housing support available to them.

In relation to perpetrators, there is always limited data available in case file notes. The case files indicated that the majority of perpetrators were male partners, 58% were the current husband of the person seeking help, and in 21% cent of cases they were the divorced or former partner of the client. These numbers are broadly reflective of patterns of DFV (Segrave & Pfitzner, 2020). It is also worth noting that while in 84% of the cases in this study there was one perpetrator, 15% of cases involved two or more perpetrators, most often family-in-law members—specifically parent’s in-law. This is important in the context of understanding the familial context of DFV and the patterns and experiences of abuse that temporary visa holders and migrant and refugee women experience (see also Anitha & Gill, 2022).

Experiences of Violence: Key Information Regarding the Presentation and Situations of Help-Seeking Women

Of the 100 women in the study, 63% had been physically hurt by the perpetrator in some way, 92% had experienced controlling behaviours, and 38% had been denied food, a secure place to sleep and live and/or medication. In relation to forms of control, this included eight women being removed from their homes; five women being denied money for food or having perpetrators refuse to pay for essentials, including medical essentials for young babies; five women who had no independent access to the house; and six women who were denied access to medical care (Segrave & Pfitzner, 2020, p. 20). During periods of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, a concern among advocates and service providers was that women who held temporary visas would be less likely to seek help. As noted above, the picture was mixed. It is important to note that this study was based on 100 cases in the first Victorian lockdown.Footnote 3 As Melbourne continued to have long lockdown periods over 2020 and 2021, further analysis of reporting patterns would provide a more comprehensive picture. The ‘mixed’ picture regarding help-seeking was not unique to this study. Sabri et al. (2020) report in their multi-state study in the US similarly mixed responses regarding the amount of calls coming in, with some participants reporting an increase in calls, while others reported a decrease. Both increases and decreases were attributed to an increase in IPV (Sabri et al., 2020, p. 1302).

In this study, a third of the women were separated at the time of contact, so there are longer term consequences that remain to be seen—particularly regarding women who remained in or returned to relationships that were abusive because of financial or other pressures. What was clear was that women who did return to perpetrators, and who were being supported by this service, consistently noted that the reason they returned was the absence of alternative housing, lack of money and the absence of enough government or other support. This was seen to be exacerbated in context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, findings around the broad situations of risk and experiences of violence and abuse were not dissimilar to pre-COVID contexts. However, there were specific impacts and pressure points clearly connected to or intensified by pandemic conditions broadly.

In some of the case files, specific notes were made regarding how the pandemic and lockdown impacted women seeking support. There were specific stress impacts: for example, in one case a client was scared to go out and take her child out because of the fear of contracting COVID-19, while another client was very concerned about finding a job and her financial survival because of the labour impacts during lockdowns. There were consistent notes in case files regarding the high levels of stress experienced by the clients. This included the stress felt by many people globally who were separated from families abroad and also, often, exacerbated by pandemic conditions and the uncertainty of when travel and connection may be restored, and their experiences of abuse and violence (Segrave & Pfitzner, 2020, pp. 21–23). The recognition that life stressors had been intensified in the context of the pandemic were also reflected in findings from two US studies. Sabri et al. (2020) studied immigrant women and service providers in multiple US states, with 45 survivors and 17 service providers. They found:

[The] impact of COVID-19 on immigrant survivors of IPV [was described by participants as] … a reciprocal and reinforcing relationship between increased life stressors and IPV due to the COVID 19 pandemic and associated response. Together, these interacted to also shape the mental health of survivors. (Sabri et al., 2020, p. 1298)

Financial hardship was, however, consistent. This was connected both to loss of employment and/or the loss of employment of their partner. In the Sabri et al. study, they found that—across multiple US states—most survivors and service providers mentioned the effects of unemployment on the ability to have basic needs met in the family (rent, food and childcare) and husbands losing their jobs and taking out the stress on their wives (Sabri et al., 2020, p. 1299). Similarly, Gillespie et al. (2022), who studied migrant and refugee women in Italy, found that ‘socioeconomic insecurity was … worsened by the pandemic’s overall impact on employment sectors and its exacerbation of class inequities. This was especially true for migrant and refugee’ (Gillespie et al., 2022, p. 9).

In this study, of the 100 cases, 72 clients were experiencing financial difficulties at the time of contact with the service. COVID-19 was not the consistent causal factor for those financial difficulties, however it clearly had heightened or increased the prevalence of financial difficulties for this group of women. Of the 100 clients, 30 women had paid employment outside the home before the pandemic and the impact for those 30 women was mixed: nearly 70% of women who had employment lost their job and 30% had reduced work hours because of COVID-19 (Segrave & Pfitzner, 2020, pp. 34–35). Critically, this group of women was mostly ineligible for JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments as temporary visa holders.Footnote 4 The result was that women were more likely to be reliant or dependent upon their perpetrator and/or require significantly more financial and other support from the service, echoing findings from other international studies (Anitha & Gill, 2022; Gillespie et al., 2022; Sabri et al., 2020). For example, in one case a client had lost her job due to the pandemic and had no income or savings. The reason for this was partly connected to the financial abuse of the perpetrator who had been financially exploiting her prior to the pandemic, but the lack of a job meant there was no way out for her in that context. The impact of the pandemic on the financial stability of perpetrators also impacted DFV contexts for clients. Some perpetrators lost their jobs or had reduced income, which had the flow-on impact of increased violence or threats of violence, further compounded by the limitations on women in terms of exiting the family home. These findings regarding financial stressors and the impact of exclusion from support were echoed by Sabri et al. (2020). They pointed to the stressors relating to family members dependent on immigrant women:

Being undocumented or having a work visa due to job loss and inability to send money to family abroad was an added stress: ‘the focus has been on just surviving because it’s not just COVID-19 affecting people here. It’s affecting people back home. When I’m on un- unemployment, I don’t have enough money to send back home’ (Service Provider, Age 40, African). A service provider shared the impact of the intersection between immigration status, access to basic needs and gender-based violence: ‘Our undocumented clients have to work under the table, especially during the coronavirus. When you look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs ... there’s not enough money for food or rent ... or to keep phones. With abuse, the spouse controls the finances’ (Service Provider, Age 24, Latina). The same service provider mentioned that undocumented immigrants are unable to avail public benefits such as unemployment and government assistance which contributes to increased financial hardship. (Sabri et al., 2020, p. 1299)

The case file study limitations are evident here, in that while some stressors were noted, the broader impacts were not always captured, nor was it possible to explore them further. What we see, though—in larger scale studies and smaller, richer qualitative studies—is that consistently migrant and refugee women’s structural inequality and exclusion was directly connected to their experiences of DFV.

Broader Service Provision Challenges

Importantly, what is also captured in the context of COVID-19 is the way in which service providers stepped into the void of communication and support for temporary visa holders, particularly for migrant and refugee women more broadly. This is examined in detail in Chapter 5. However, in relation to working with migrant women specifically, other research has highlighted the very specific impacts on services working with migrant and refugee women, including but not limited to temporary migrants. For example, Alnas-Smiley et al. (2020) describe the increase in both the type and amount of work being managed by one shelter service in California with crisis calls and support need increasing but funding being less accessible, as they relied on community rather than government support. Similarly, Chowdhury et al. (2022) focus on service provision experiences in Bangladesh supporting Rohingya women, and the impact of deeming gender-based violence services as non-essential and reducing their capacity. Phillimore et al. (2021, p. 2215) examine the effects of COVID-19 on forced migrant SGBV survivors and the organisations supporting them across the UK, Turkey, Tunisia, Sweden and Australia. They note the inconsistent and unreliable responses to different groups of migrant women and to the service trying to support them. Anitha et al. (2022, p. 474) worked with service providers in the UK and found that the impacts on services supporting migrant women not only increased in numbers but ‘a greater proportion of women were presenting with complex needs’.

What was clear for the service provider in this study—but also other service providers in Victoria and across Australia—was that the needs of clients were exacerbated: they were more significant, they required more ongoing support and they involved much higher rates of stress. This all had a flow-on impact in relation to the budget and support provided by service providers and the time commitment to each client, plus the impact on the workforce. In this study, the amount of financial support required by and provided to the 100 victim-survivors ranged from $250 to $5720. A total of nearly $102,000 worth of support was provided to this group of women in a short space of time—on average nearly $2000 per person. To put this into context, case managers revealed in this data that clients who normally would have stopped contact with this service returned because they had no other option for financial support. The financial support was a significant increase on what the service was usually able and did provide to clients. It became evident very quickly to the service that the clients were significantly impacted and that their budget needed to be revised. New extraordinary requests were being made. For example, student visa holders requested support to pay their visa fees, as they risked visa cancellation if the fees were unpaid, and they could not work and had no financial support from the government. The service also created an initiative to provide emergency food delivery to those clients who were extremely vulnerable, including temporary visa holders. It is also important to note that the Victorian Government enabled significantly more money to go into the sector at this time, based on the recognition that DFV services would be at the front line of providing more financial support given the broader economic impact of the pandemic. A major challenge at the time was the exacerbation of what was already a significant housing concern for victim-survivors that had been noted previously in the Royal Commission into Family Violence (RCFV) in Victoria. This often meant supporting women to pay bonds and other housing costs to enable them to find safe housing where it was possible, because they had no employment or income security.

Temporariness in the Context of DFV and COVID-19

As noted above, across Australia and internationally there is clear recognition that temporariness and precarity in relation to visa status is incredibly important in understanding the way in which DFV manifests and impacts women. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was important to attend to how this played out. Critically, in the analysis of these case files much of the data reaffirmed what was already known regarding the need for structural and service reform to enable safety supports and minimise risk for women who hold temporary visas. That temporariness is consistently used as leverage by perpetrators was well evidenced in the data. In this study, 70 of the 100 clients had details in their case note regarding their own assessment of risk. Over three-quarters of those 70 women indicated that they feared harm or death at the hands of their perpetrator, and 20% specifically feared deportation and/or feared being forcibly separated from their Australian citizen child because of the mother’s visa status (e.g. where fathers assert that the mother will be deported and the child will remain with him). A third of the women who identified experiencing fear and risk related to their migration status indicated this was a significant issue. In addition to fearing deportation, it is important to understand the impact or context of the fears that are related to that. Over a quarter of the women in this study feared returning to their country of origin and their fears related to, for example, exclusion or shame in the community. Others feared violent outcomes, while others feared destitution (Segrave & Pfitzner, 2020). This is important to highlight because only one-third of the women in this study had a clear potential prospect of accessing a permanent visa, as they were partner visa holders. For the remaining two-thirds, their fears and concerns of returning home were even more powerful leverage for their perpetrators. Yet, in the context of significant fear, this group of women did make contact and seek help. The long-term outcomes cannot be gleaned from this study, but a major question for future research is what happened to women who did not seek help in the context of assessing themselves as at risk of harm or death from their perpetrator. It is clear that the pressures and impact of temporariness pre-dated the pandemic, but the conditions are important because of the very specific impact they had on families, relationships, and the scale and intensity of abuse.

Specialist Service Providers as Key Players in COVID-19

A critical aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the role that specialist services have played in relation to pandemic management and broader policy settings. While there was additional financial support provided by the Victorian State Government for specialist support services, it was clear that there these services stepped in to play a critical role in the context of COVID-19 above and beyond specialist service support in the context of DFV. Specialist service providers stepped in to become health advice communicators. Intake case managers were also providing up-to-date, in-language information about the latest government mandates. A significant part of this practice was to translate information and share it with clients when they were undertaking intake, and at any point of communication while they were working with them. They were not the only service providing this level of carefully targeted, easy-to-understand information about changing policy settings.

In Victoria, this was particularly important because the settings kept quickly changing: policy around financial and income support changed at key points, and it became evident that information was not being well-communicated to various groups, particularly where English proficiency was low and where people were less likely to access mainstream news and other services. In Victoria, this was highlighted, for example, in the revelation that the translation of key government communications was months behind, and that it also was not prepared appropriately in relation to having skilled translators support the translation of information (see Dazel, 2020).

Concluding Thoughts

In Anitha and Gill’s (2022) study of service providers supporting black and minority ethnic (BME) women experiencing DFV during the pandemic, they noted:

Women with insecure immigration status have been hardest hit by the pandemic. The practitioners we interviewed reported extra burdens on their services during the pandemic that arose from both the gaps built into the policy as well as adaptive practice by street-level bureaucrats working within the wider DVA sector. In addition, the pandemic has further diminished support options for women with NRPF [no recourse to public funds]. Women’s refuges have been operating at capacity because of increased demand due to difficulties involved in rehousing residents. Despite being underfunded and small compared with some of the larger generic providers, ‘by and for’ services housed a disproportionate number of women with NRPF during the pandemic. (Anitha & Gill, 2022, p. 474)

This work—plus other research focused on immigrant women, COVID-19 and DFV—has illuminated more of the issues raised in this chapter. Further, Phillimore et al. (2021) recently argued that ‘the pandemic conditions exacerbated existing stressors particularly for marginalised individuals with no support’, and that this, combined with ‘the intensified abandonment by the state’, increased the risk of physical violence (Phillimore et al., 2021, p. 2218). These observations are echoed in the findings presented above and draw attention to the importance of in situ research, and the value in making the connections to the international consistency of women’s structural disempowerment via, in this case, sustaining temporary visa holders in highly precarious positions. Importantly, other researchers have also extended this analysis to consider women’s experiences of abuse and violence both within and outside the home. The work of Alnas-Smiley et al. focuses on immigrant Asian and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women experiencing intimate partner violence. The impact of restrictions had made their life more difficult, as had increased experience of hate crimes against their community. The authors note: ‘These women are facing a predicament of lack of safety at home as well as outside’ (Alnas-Smiley et al., 2020, pp. 407–408).

This chapter has illuminated the importance of locating DFV experiences, women’s disempowerment and risk, and the challenges for the service sector beyond the specificity of COVID-19 to more widely consider the implications of broader policies and how they have entrenched inequality of temporariness. The difference between women who experience DFV as citizens and those who are temporary is already significant in terms of service support access (financial support, accommodation, health and welfare), but in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this was widened by other decisions. This gap needs to be understood as contributing to violence: refusing temporary visa holders support and creating a national response that embeds this structural difference in our policies actually produces conditions that further empower perpetrators. Responses to DFV in the midst of a global pandemic, or any emergency for that matter, cannot be siloed: we can’t claim to be concerned about DFV while refusing to financially support temporary visa holders and then fail to understand that the consequence of that for temporary visa holders experiencing DFV is that the conditions for seeking safety are even further away from their reach.