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Sexual Violence in an Immigrant Context: South Asian Women in the United States

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Gendered Journeys: Women, Migration and Feminist Psychology

Abstract

Recent events, such as the brutal gang rape and subsequent death of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in New Delhi, India in December, 2012, have stirred global public outrage. Yet, violence against women, both physical and sexual, is a major public health problem worldwide, occurring across cultural and socioeconomic contexts (Basile, Chen, Black & Saltzman, 2007; Bryant-Davis, Chung & Tillman, 2009). While the problem of sexual violence is rooted in social injustice in any cultural context, it is further complicated in the case of immigrant women of color who cope with layers of inequality and discrimination within and outside of their ethnic communities. Because of these challenges, traumatic experiences of immigrant women are often unnoticed and unad-dressed within families, communities and broader society. In particular, sexual violence experienced by South Asian women has been virtually unaddressed in the psychological literature, paralleling the lack of discussion and silencing of this issue in South Asian communities.

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© 2015 Pratyusha Tummala-Narra, Anmol Satiani, and Neha Patel

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Tummala-Narra, P., Satiani, A., Patel, N. (2015). Sexual Violence in an Immigrant Context: South Asian Women in the United States. In: Espín, O.M., Dottolo, A.L. (eds) Gendered Journeys: Women, Migration and Feminist Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137521477_8

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