Reimagining Gender Based and Domestic Violence Responses

Morgan MooneJuly 13, 2020

On Monday, June 29th, Law@theMargins co-hosted Addressing Intimate Partner & Sexual Partner Violence: Multiracial and Multicultural Collaborations During COVID-19, moderated by Margarita Guzman from Violence Intervention Program. Kavita Mehra, Executive Director of Sakhi for South Asian Women, Zeinab Eyega, Executive Director of Sauti Yetu, and Niketa Sheth, Chief Executive Officer of Womankind, were panelists. The event was a collaborative and multi-faceted effort to look at domestic violence prevention work after COVID-19. Our tweets, resources, and video of the event are housed on our website, as well as under the #DVCOVID19 hashtag on Twitter.

Laying the Groundwork

Margarita began the webinar by acknowledging the state of uncertainty that the world is in: “Many people have been very concerned with what is happening right now, and with what comes next.” The answers to these questions and concerns are complicated. “Our survivor communities have been hunted by ICE, been beleaguered by poverty, and are now stalked by COVID.” Threats that have existed are now threatening survivors in new ways. “We knew that the political climate would be bad,” Zeinab states, “but we didn’t know exactly how it would play out.” Organizations that the panelists represent have seen survivors being separated from critical services. Many do not avail themselves of services because they are scared of being denied, getting sick, or being exposed to agencies like ICE. “The system has become the second arm of the government, so individuals are scared to report [domestic violence],” she continues. With increasingly anti-immigrant sentiment in the country, more and more survivors are reluctant to report — “You either report and expose yourself to the system, and now you’re deportable, or you suffer and risk your life. THese are the choices that no one should be forced to make.”

Kavita notes that many of the survivors their organizations support are those that are already living on the margins in terms of their own economic stability. “Many of the survivors we work with are living paycheck to paycheck.” She notes that about ⅓ of their clients are employed, and of those, about 90% are hourly wage workers. “There was palpable fear, anxiety, and depression that survivors were experiencing regarding economic stability, housing stability, and food security in addition to processing their trauma. For survivors who are in the early parts of their healing process, stability is critical.” When COVID emerged, a floodgate of issues came with it. Sakhi immediately revamped their food justice work. “We have distributed close to 5,000 pounds of fresh food from March 12 to today,” Kavita says, “and we are actively continuing this work to ensure food security.” Sakhi also intends to distribute $100,000 to survivors for critical bills. “We were already trying to come back from 2008, and this pandemic has pushed us back so far in terms of stability.” When talking about the compounding impacts of trauma, healthcare access, economic stability and the dire outlook of the pandemic, Kavita asks: “If an undocumented individual is diagnosed with COVID19, and they have two children, what are they supposed to do?”

Role of Police in DV/GBV

Institutions are charged with maintaining inequity and racist systems will always enact laws in a racist manner. “Within this context,” Margarita says, “we ask immigrants and women of color to call the police when they’re being abused. The reality is that violence against women and girls increases chances of criminal repercussions.” In New York, violations of orders of protection require mandatory arrests. For women of color, this often results in both the abusive partner and the reporting individual being arrested. “The question remains, then, why would you call the police? The DV movement has been so focused on getting police and criminal systems to take them seriously, that there has been little else done.” The result, she says, is perpetuation of carceral feminism, or the over-reliance on the criminal justice system as a unilateral response to domestic violence. “We have a chance to, and we must, think critically and imagine new responses. We must question whether we can trust the police. And when we actually take the time to listen to Black and brown communities, the answer is no.”

The question we are asking ourselves now is: if are willing to acknowledge that criminal and civil legal systems have played such a huge role in the subjugation and state-sanctioned murder of black and brown bodies, then should we, CAN we, trust them to safeguard black and brown survivors of GBV?
Margarita Guzman, VIP Mujeres

Panelists were then asked to respond to the notion that police just need better training. With limited success, Niketa mentioned that some good can be done when organizations are positioned to educate and provide training. While the relationship with the NYPD was challenging, that partnership did result in positive results: “We shared, very openly, feedback that, when an individual is being arrested, a family member should not be used as a translator. That feedback was taken.” She continued to say that, while there are opportunities there for improvement, it is even less likely now that survivors turn to police for support. Agreeing with this, Kavita noted that police response is nowhere near a trauma-informed response. “For someone who experiences trauma and then immediately calls upon an individual who is carrying a gun, I have to imagine that there is a better system out there. When a police officer comes, the situation is often worse. The perpetrator is ignited and knows that they can now cross another boundary. The system is not designed to support survivors of GBV. It is designed to perpetuate a form of state control.”

Margarita also noted the link between domestic violence and state violence: “The reality is that violence against women and girls increases risk of incarceration because their survival strategies are criminalized. One study of women at Riker’s island found that the majority of women who had experienced DV prior to incarceration reported engaging in illegal activity as a response to threats, coercion and violence by a partner.”

“When we say ‘this is messed up and needs to change,’” Margarita says, the response is immediately “‘well, what is the perfect alternative to the police?’ because, for some reason there needs to be a perfect plan in order to explore alternatives. We can say ‘not this’ and that be enough to explore different options.”

Mutual Aid, Cash Assistance, and Discretionary Funding

The mutual aid movement and grassroots efforts have helped get basic needs out to folks through a multi-tiered response. “It is so important,” Niketa said, “to put cash in the pocket of the client at that moment. It is sometimes forgotten that, during this pandemic is not when the violence starts, it is when it is exacerbated. To know that [survivors] can rely on an organization that has that ability” to put cash in their pockets is huge. “Hope is such an important thing at a time like this. It is saving lives.”

Kavita, Niketa, and Margarita co-authored a piece on the proposed budget cuts in discretionary funding for NYC. Mayor DeBlasio is currently attempting to cut all discretionary funding, which will have a direct impact on the organizations. “And this is happening in the middle of a crisis,” Kavita says. “We are tired of continuously being underfunded when our services are in such high demand.”

The organizations are also calling for defunding the NYPD by at least $1 billion, and suggesting that the money be redirected towards community-based organizations.

Collaborative Efforts

Margarita noted that the four groups on the webinar were all culturally-specific organizations doing gender justice work in NYC. “Collaboration work really matters for organizations like ours. WE all wish we had a huge team, but we just aren’t that big. We lean on our amazing teams and team members and we do a lot of government-based advocacy on our own.” All four organizations voice concern about the way that mainstream DV organizations do not put the communities they serve in the foreground, and are not always thinking about the needs that the clients have. In all of this, somehow, “these small grassroots organizations have found a way to give our communities money through emergency cash assistance. This didn’t happen after months of planning. It happened in the moment that the need existed, and it happened with small organizations.”

What’s more, a racist system will always enact its laws in a racist manner. In NY State, we have a law called mandatory arrest for violations of orders of protection. That means that if cops are called to a scene and there is a violation of an order of protections, they have to make an arrest, no questions asked – Great victory, right?
NOT if you’re a poor woman of color. Of survivors in a New York City study who had been arrested along with their abusers (dual arrest cases) or arrested as a result of a complaint lodged by their abuser (retaliatory arrest cases), 66% were African American or Latina, 43% were living below the poverty line, and 19% percent were receiving public assistance at the time. Why would you call the police if you are far more likely to get arrested along with the person who is abusing you?
Margarita Guzman, VIP Mujeres

“There is power in the work that we do and when we come together,” Kavita says. “The way that we work is quite distinct and the language that we use is distinct, but what is common is the belief that survivors must be centered throughout the course of the work and in every moment of their healing.” Through the support of the New York Women’s Foundation, Sakhi, Violence Intervention Program, Sauti Yetu, Womankind, Black Women’s Blueprint and Arab American Family Support Center were able to bring in an outside facilitator to help develop a mutual mission and value statement. “We are actively bringing voices together because it makes our work much richer.” The organizations are working to dismantle the idea of scarcity.

“At a time where so little information and direction was given to organizations, we had to lean on each other and learn from one another,” Niketa says, “and that is powerful.” The coalition, Zeinab says, is a “space where we can nurture and support each other but also challenge each other to rise about — because we know that we have the potential.”

Looking Forward

“In the midst of the pandemic, we are experiencing an explosion of visibility regarding police brutality and itsThe question we are asking ourselves now is: if are willing to acknowledge that criminal and civil legal systems have played such a huge role in the subjugation and state-sanctioned murder of black and brown bodies, then should we, CAN we, trust them to safeguard black and brown survivors of GBV? history of targeting black community members for violence,” Margarita said. “We have an opportunity to re-imagine responses to GBV.”

“We hope the best for our survivors and will do everything that it takes to support them,” Niketa said. “There are realistic challenges ahead,” including for those who have been put on hold by the court system, and those that have been experiencing real challenges in accessing childcare in order to avail themselves of services. “The main thing we are seeing is an obvious desire to get back into the workforce.” Womankind, therefore, has been putting a lot of weight behind exploring what it means to support training around job readiness, whether soft skills or more familiarity around the use of technology. “How does one build this skill set while trying to stay afloat? Thinking about the long-term needs of these families is critical.”

Zeinab notes that, while we must think about the direct services that will be required in the coming months, we must also be thinking about the makeup of our government: “If you’re of voting age, mobilize everyone in your family to vote. We need individuals in the government that will have empathy.” We do not know how long the pandemic will continue, she says, or what the outcome will be. In the meantime, we must worry about our staff, safety at work and what protocols we need to put in place if the city opens up. We must think about all of this in addition to still providing services to survivors. “I worry that it will be tougher for immigrant survivors to get assistance. What else will we be doing to protect them and their children?”

“We are going to see the bottom fall out from under us,” Kavita said. “We are facing an economic catastrophe. This moment is going to take us a long time to recover. For those who live on the margins, the process of restabilizing takes much longer.” Layers of trauma are being compounded, and organizations are preparing for not only “working with survivors to ensure economic stability and food security and housing security, but also what the mental health toll will be. We know that we are not done…We must be thinking about the toll of community trauma and also thinking about how we brace for what is next.”