Women's and Immigrant's Rights, Hand in Hand
Ryan Campbell
Editor at DRM Capitol Group
Women's and Immigrant's Rights, Hand in Hand
07/26/2014
Beverly Upton, head of the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium, addressed a crowd from the steps of City Hall in San Francisco. She was flanked by advocates from queer and transgender groups, but mostly by women's rights groups. The event was "Women Against SCOMM," and they were protesting Secure Communities (SCOMM), a program which allows local police to enforce immigration law typically enforced only by federal officers. Upton spoke of how SCOMM had unique consequences for women and girls, who often refuse to go to the police after instances of domestic violence or sexual assault.
This is only one of several instances where there is a strong overlap between women's rights and immigrant rights, and why advocates in either community cannot address the needs of their community without addressing issues in the other.
SCOMM, a federal program, stands alongside other laws like Arizona's SB 1070 and Alabama's HB 56 in discouraging immigrant communities from going to the police by having local police enforce immigration. This takes a toll on community safety in general as every immigrant without status becomes fearful of the police, however, it is especially felt by the women and girls who are victimized in these communities: they have nowhere to go for help because many fear deportation and separation from their families more than being labeled as an easy target. Because these women cannot report sexual predators, or any criminal for that matter, they remain a threat within the undocumented community as well as the general population.
On the border, the crisis that has been taking place has been heartbreaking. Like in any humanitarian crisis, women pay a higher price: in Honduras, Guatamala and El Salvador, girls that come of age are often visited by gang members and told they will either submit to becoming their property and sex trafficked, or they will be killed. One 14 year old girl who escaped Central America recalled how her friend was gang-raped and dismembered, her body strewn alongside the road to school to send a message to the rest of the girls about refusing the cartel....
MORE at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-campbell/womens-and-immigration_b_5621878.html
