The focus of analysis of the qualitative data was to explore and understand the dynamics of IPV in Pakistani immigrant families in Germany as well as to examine the influence of the process of migration on spousal relations. Four main themes emerged from the analysis of data: (a) change of culture and familial relations; (b) Migration/acculturation stressors and abuse in spousal relations; (c) women’s experiences of IPV, and (d) women’s response to IPV.
Change of culture and familial relations
Pakistan and Germany are markedly different societies in terms of historical traditions, religious orientations, behavioral norms, and family relations. Compared to Pakistan, Germany has attained a considerable degree of gender equality and women have a relatively high degree of participation in socio-economic life. Conversely, Pakistan is a conservative society where women, especially from low socio-economic and rural background, have a very low level of socio-economic participation and live under a rigid patriarchal structure (Critelli [2010]; Jafar [2005]).
Similarly, the process of migration from a developing country might be troublesome and difficult especially for those families have low level of education, restricted exposure to modernity and less pluralistic background (Rianon and Shelton [2003]). For example, in Pakistan, when people plan to migrate to Germany, they develop their own judgments and thoughts about the country of destination. Their judgments are based on stories from their friends and relatives, or information gained from TV and other forms of mass media. But when they actually enter the host country, they are surprised to find it a different world; very different from their imagination and expectations. When immigrants’ expectations are unmet, they can experience psychological crisis and social dysfunction, such as interpersonal stress, anger, sadness, and culture shock (Samuel [2009]).
We discussed these points with our study participants. During the course of the interviews, almost all the participants talked about cultural differences. The most striking difference they reported was the individualism and markedly different gender-roles in German society. While explaining the differences in gender-roles between Germany and Pakistan, one housewife in her late forties observed:
In Pakistan, we always think in terms of family. We work for our family members, we sacrifice for them. Here [in Germany] women are independent and self-centered. They earn for themselves, and take care of their individual self more than anything else. They have a good life; they go on holiday every six months. We cannot think of such a life in Pakistan. We have a different culture.
When immigrants from conservative societies experience various differences in the host country, they try to understand, interpret, and evaluate the impact of this changed environment on their lives. They try to learn and adjust to their new surroundings, but this process also creates some fear, ambivalence, and uncertainty. In their day-to-day life, they try to understand what is appropriate and inappropriate in the host culture. One high school educated housewife in her mid-forties, while narrating her experiences of immigration with special reference to the attitude of her husband, stated:
Here [in Germany] life is different; the nature of familial relations is different. Here people treat children differently and talk with their women politely. One day when my husband was talking with me in a shopping-mall [normal talking], people started staring at us. …my husband has a habit of speaking loudly. People thought that he was yelling at me.
Relocation from a conservative country, such as Pakistan, into a post modern country like Germany might pose a threat to immigrants’ self identity (Rianon and Shelton [2003]). During the discussion, we noted that some women felt a threat to their cultural identity: they wanted to preserve their core religious and family values. Nonetheless, they did not reject the host culture in total: they were willing to have selective assimilation with the economic mainstream of the host society.
During the interviews, women reported some “fears” that could create tension between husband and wife while being in Germany. A typical stereotype was the influence of Western culture on the morality of men. The availability of pornographic material was perceived by women as a threat to the “morality” of their families. One woman said that, when her husband departed for Germany, his father advised him “to refrain from immoral activities and to stick to the religious values.” One woman narrated the experience of her friend, who questioned her husband about his “immoral activities.” Such questions always create tension and anger between the husband and wife. Another woman, while narrating the experiences of her friend, opined: “In this relatively free and ‘secular’ society, some men tried to ‘benefit’ from the ‘freedom’, like drinking alcohol, watching pornographic films or having a girlfriend. But such ‘freedom’ was strictly forbidden for women.” She further observed: “There is much hypocrisy among some Pakistani men regarding their attitude towards women. Men have different moral standards for their wives and for themselves.”
In our study, no woman openly reported that her husband watches pornographic films or is involved in other “immoral activities”. However, two respondents hinted at some fear about the involvement of their husbands in such activities. So, in order to ward off such fears, individual and collective efforts were made to preserve their cultural identities and “moral purity”. One woman with a high school education highlighted the importance and centrality of Pakistani family values. She observed:
This free culture [Germany] could influence our women by giving them a sense of independence and liberty, which could ultimately weaken our value system, especially our family institutions. We therefore actively try to preserve our values and put up a collective action against a woman or a family who undermines our identity or destroys our value system.
Migration/acculturation stressors and abuse in spousal relations
Adjustment and resettlement of Pakistani immigrant families to Germany is expected to be a challenging and difficult process. Research has reported that the process of immigration creates many unexpected stresses for the immigrants and among them one could be parent–child conflict which may be the result of dissonant acculturation ((Portes and Rumbaut [2001]). It happens when parents and children do not acculturate at similar pace, for example, when children acculturate faster or more completely than parents (Portes and Rumbaut [2001]). It may also happen when family members (e.g., husband and wife) perceive and incorporate the elements of host culture in different way and as a result their relations may experience strain and tense situations (Ahmad et al. [2004]; Samuel. [2009]). Different studies have conceptualized this phenomenon differently; some call it acculturation stress (Samuel [2009]) or migration stressors (Keygnaert and Temmerman [2007]).
During the course of our interviews, the women explained their experiences of various stressors after arriving in Germany. The most commonly-experienced and most worrisome stressor was issues related to children’s socialization, and especially the concern to ensure the cultural conformity of adolescent daughters. Others stressors included the growing inter-generational gap, the threat of unemployment and loss of status, social isolation, and the unpredictable behavior of people in the host society (see Figure 1).
The socialization of children was the most important concern among the study participants. The women with daughters were more worried about their daughters’ socialization. Almost all the participants who had daughters believed that they should “keep an eye” on their daughters because they could not afford “too much freedom”, even though they pretended to be very liberal and Westernized. During the conversations, the women revealed that, although both husband and wife were responsible for the socialization of their children, the primary responsibility for proper socialization of children (according to their cultural values) rested with mothers. As per cultural values and gender roles, mothers were blamed and held responsible for any inadequate value inculcation and training of their children. One participant said:
Taleemo-tarbiat [cultural socialization] of children, especially daughters, is primarily the responsibility of the mother. If my daughter does not follow our culture and does not care about our cultural values then everyone will point the finger at me. …That I am not a good mother to teach my daughter about preserving the family honor and values. Here [in Germany], I am worried about how to save my daughter from bayrahravi [waywardness] and other evils of the society like free mixing of both genders.
Another widely expressed concern of the participants was the preservation of cultural identity in their children. We found that the issue of socialization of children was very sensitive between husband and wife. One woman with two teen-aged daughters, while explaining her situation, said:
My husband stresses the righteous behavior of my two daughters. But they are studying in a German school, and though I can influence their behavior I cannot fully control them. … God forbid, if they do something wrong, my husband will never spare me. You know, “daughters’ behavior” is a matter of family prestige and honor. … And you know that people butcher their own daughters for the sake of their honor. I am afraid of that.
Other respondents also highlighted the growing problem of conflict and tension between parents and children. One woman told us that her teen-aged daughter was getting more and more annoyed and irritated with her because she didn’t like her (mother’s) controlling behavior. She further said: “My daughter distances herself from me [mother] because according to her I am nobody to control her dressing and movements.” Some women (9 of 32) expressed some fears such as aolad-say-fasila (intergenerational gap) as a cause of conflict and stress in families while living in Germany. Almost every respondent expressed a desire to preserve and transmit Pakistani values to their children. “If these values are under threat, we will simply go back; we cannot compromise”, said one mother of three small daughters. Another participant in her mid-thirties with a university degree pointed out: “Because of the language barrier, I cannot help my children in their school homework. My children think that I am a lay person, know nothing and they consider me backward. This is sometimes distressing for me.”
The third stressor reported by women was feelings of isolation and detachment from the host society. The women who participated in the study tended to have little formal education, which might have influenced their adjustment to the host society. Some women (6 of 32) with two to three years of migration history reported that they were living alone at home for the whole day. Few of them (5 of 32) felt estrangement from their neighborhood, geography, community, and perceived a low level of adjustment to the host society. These women reported a relatively restricted social life in Germany. Owing to various limitations, they usually interacted within the network of their own community. For years, they lived with their “own people” and rarely established contact with mainstream German society. One woman said: “Here people are nice but they are not very open or friendly. They are hesitant to make friendships and shy to contact foreigners.”
From the conversation it was revealed that a few women (4 of 32) had developed their own beliefs and stereotypes about mainstream German culture and had never tried to verify or check the validity of these beliefs. Based on these perceptions, they restricted their relations to “like-minded immigrant women”, especially from South Asian cultures. The majority of the women (19 of 32) reported that most of their time was spent on cooking and performing other household activities and they rarely went to libraries or recreational facilities or engaged in other activities. Nevertheless, almost half of the women in our study reported that they were quite satisfied with the freedom and sophisticated system of the host society.
Few women (4 of 32) felt very isolated and dissatisfied. Here, “isolation refers to the individual’s perception and reality of being emotionally and socially alone, economically confined, and culturally disconnected. It is the ‘feeling and fact’ of not belonging or having any meaningful relationship” (Abraham [1998], p. 224). Two women considered that this isolation was not natural; it was deliberately created by their families (husbands and in-laws) to keep them socially disconnected. One of the participants, while unfolding her memories, told us:
When I came to Germany for the first time, I was just 20 years old. I had many good dreams of living with my husband and going for outings. But when I came here the life was totally different. I had to live alone the whole day in my apartment. I waited for my husband the whole day. I felt totally insulted. I used to feel myself to be a bird in a cage.
One of the reasons for their isolation was the absence of extended family support for women. However, regarding the role of the extended family, the women reported contradictory situations. Some women (2 of 6) who had extended family in Germany considered the extended family itself to be a source of trouble for them. They thought that members of their extended family (e.g. mothers-in-law) tried to reinforce orthodox views about family and tried to make them into the “ideal good wife”. A majority of the women (22 of 32) thought that they were satisfied without their extended families (even though sometimes extended families played a supportive role). Overall, it was noted that immigrant families were trying to adopt and adjust to the host country’s realities with or without extended family.
Women’s experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) after immigration
Women’s attitude towards the problem of IPV in immigrant families
Dealing with IPV first requires an understanding of perceptions of and attitudes towards IPV by the population under study. In order to gain this insight, the participants were asked about their views on the problem of IPV as an issue in immigrant Pakistani families. Some of the women (8 of 32) opined that the problem of IPV against women is not a big issue in Pakistani immigrant families. They considered it to be a Western conspiracy and believed that the very concept of IPV was a “Western construct” and not a real problem to be worried about. “It is just propaganda of the Western media to defame Islam and Muslims”, commented one participant.
Another woman argued that Western culture had an “agenda” to disrupt Muslim family values. She believed that “mild and justified violence” is an essential component of marital stability. While presenting a “cost-benefit-analysis” of IPV she argued:
On the face of it, the Western family system seems very sober and civilized. But, in reality, the system is heading towards tanazul and ikhlaqi dawaliapun [social degeneration and moral bankruptcy]. Here women are free to go where they like. The father has no control over his daughter. The brother cannot ask his sister where and with whom she intends to spend nights. The net result is a growing number of divorces and couples living without marriages, without children.
Nevertheless, majority of the participants (24 of 32) did not seriously believe in conspiracy theories. Two high school educated housewives criticized the behavior of most of the poorly educated working-class men who exerted pressure on women to adjust their behavior according to the wishes of their husbands.
Women’s experiences of IPV
A growing body of research has shown that the incidence of IPV in immigrant communities is more or less similar to that in the host population but that the experiences of immigrant women in IPV situations are often aggravated by their specific positioning as immigrants (Menjivar and Salcido [2002]). Factors related to immigration, such as social isolation and lack of awareness about their rights or the existence of domestic violence services may place immigrant women at increased risk of IPV (Raj et al. [2005]).
We noted in our data that, because of their relatively low socioeconomic status, the immigrant families were deeply involved in solving different problems of adjustment, which also affected their spousal relations. Some women (9 of 32) reported that they had been facing many challenges, such as unemployment, housing, children’s schooling etc. after coming to Germany, but expressed their inability to help their husbands. While explaining her situation, one woman reported: “When my husband confronts a problem he gets angry; he gets irritated. After fixing the problem his behavior returns to normal. Sometimes, he apologies for his behavior. But for the time being, it is distressing for me.” Another respondent opined:
When we used to live in Pakistan, he sometime showed aggressive [violent] behavior. But there [in Pakistan] every situation was clear and predictable. Here, in Germany, things are different. Every day, we come across a new situation, a new problem. In many situations, he quickly loses his temper and starts abusing me. He blames me for many situations, though I am not at fault.
Most of the participants (18 of 32) reported that their relationships with their spouses became tense in “difficult situations” but that they returned to normal after that episode.
Psychological violence
Research has reported that among immigrant families psychological violence is common because of stressful situations (Thapa-Oli et al. [2009]). In this study we tried to explore the nature and extent of psychological violence among the immigrant families. The concept of psychological violence was first explained to the respondents. In this research we defined psychological violence as “consistently doing or saying things to shame, insult, ridicule, embarrass, demean, belittle, or mentally hurt another person” (Berry [1998], p. 3). In addition to this definition, certain situations were also described to the respondents in order to elaborate on the concept of psychological violence. Psychological violence was reported by most of the participants (21 of 32). Nonetheless, the women tried to blame the situation instead of their husbands. Only four women complained that they were “humiliated” by their husbands in various social situations and they directly accused their husbands of the deliberate use of psychological abuse. One thirty-year old participant with ten years of schooling narrated the following:
I am doing my best. I am doing what maximum I can do here to please my husband. But when my husband quarrels with me on some issue, he always says: “It would have been better if I had come here alone. It was my fault that I decided to bring you here.” And when I hear such things from his mouth, I feel very bad and humiliated.
One respondent, who was a single mother with an 11-year-old daughter and had been living in Germany for the last 17 years, told us:
Although I got divorced from my husband, I am still facing psychological violence from him. As my daughter spends every second weekend with him, he sometimes emotionally disturbs me on issues related to my daughter’s education and upbringing, which sometimes really makes me mad and emotionally unstable. He [ex-husband] knows my weaknesses.
One of the study participants described how the threat of violence was detrimental to her psychological and mental health. While narrating the impact of psychological violence on her personality, she stated: “I feel extreme shame when he threatens to slaps me. He doesn’t even care about the watching children. I can’t speak to my children because of the embarrassment.” However, three women reported a good change in their husbands’ behavior after moving to Germany. They reported that after coming to Germany, their husbands became more “civilized and caring” through the influence of German culture. However, overall, it was concluded that psychological violence was one of the most frequently committed abuses among the immigrant families than physical violence.
Physical violence
Physical violence against women occurs in all societies, although its manifestation, intensity and frequency varies and is linked with the level of economic development, and gender ideology (Menjivar and Salcido [2002]). In Pakistan, the most common forms of physical violence are pushing, slapping, punching, or hitting with an object (Fikree et al. [2005]).
For the present study, we asked the participants about the actual acts of physical violence they had ever experienced after migrating to Germany. However, before asking questions, we explained physical violence as “behaviors that threaten, attempt or actually inflict physical harm” (Crowell and Burgess [1996] p. 14). Six participants reported that they had experienced physical violence (in addition to psychological violence) after immigration. However, out of these, only one participant reported that she was subjected to serious acts of violence (hitting with a fist, kicking). Not even a single participant reported the use of some proscribed weapon by her husband, nor did they report any serious (life-threatening) injuries because of violence.
While discussing physical violence, women reported that in Germany men were deterred from committing open acts of physical abuse because of the strict laws and reasonably efficient police and judicial system. While commenting on women’s rights and the legal reaction to violence against women, one semi-literate participant observed:
Here in pardes [alien land, refereeing to Germany], men are careful about their hand [physical violence]. Here the police are very concerned about women’s rights. Women’s voices are quickly heard. Careless attitudes could cause immediate confinement of a violent man in jail. Our men know this.
Women’s responses to intimate partner violence (IPV)
Women’s responses to IPV may be influenced by their immigration status as the new environment presents both new opportunities and challenges (Samuel [2009]). For example, their immigration status renders previous social skills and status irrelevant and also disrupts the social relations and family support system of the natal country (Sullivan et al. [2005]). Furthermore, women may not be able to seek help from the host country’s formal care-providing institutions because of the language barrier (Abraham [1998]; Bui [2003]; Yoshiama [2001]), and lack of knowledge about the legal system (Easteal [1996]) and community services (Weissman [2000]).
We asked questions about the respondents’ reactions and coping strategies in cases of IPV after coming to Germany. The data revealed that the women who were victims of different types of violence tried to resist or protect themselves from this violence by using different strategies to mitigate the tension and abuse and reconfigure their relationships with their husbands. The present study found that the abused women were in a difficult and complex situation because of the multiple uncertainties and insecurities they confront in the host country. One of the major difficulties reported by the women was the loss of their social network and the absence of support from their parental family members.
Most of the women who reported violence (12 of 21) were confused and undecided about adopting any particular strategy to resist violence. Actually the women tried to use multiple options to achieve the desired results. Almost all of the abused women wanted to use the “power of silence” to mend their husbands’ behavior. They hoped that the “circumstances will teach a lesson to the abusive husband.” They believed that the patience and wisdom of women should have enough power to “overpower a violent horse [husband].” The women also contacted their parental families back home for advice and support. This contact not only provided emotional solace to the women but their parents could also use their influence to put some moral pressure on the husband.
The data also showed that, with one exception, not a single woman wanted to seek help from the police or specialized care-providing services. Actually, these women did not want to increase their vulnerability; they were in no mood to take unnecessary risks in an alien land. The women who experienced abuse felt many kinds of vulnerabilities (these could be real or imaginary); they had a fear that if they complained to the police, then their husband may face deportation, which they did not want. Secondly, complaining about their husband may provoke him to take the extreme step of divorce and no woman wanted such an outcome.
The women who were still in abusive marriages were asked questions about their reasons for not leaving the abusive relationship. During the course of the interviews, it was noted that the women wanted to avoid the stigma of being a “problematic wife”. One woman said: “My life will be even worse if I get divorced.” Another woman observed: “In our culture divorce is not only the dissolution of the marriage, but it carries the stigma of women being ‘loose’, ‘immoral’ and ‘unlucky’.” Two women reported that, in the case of divorce, they would not be able to remarry and they would not be able to make an independent living. Going back to their parental home was wholly unacceptable for the women. It may be noted that bearing and suffering abuse in order to avoid the stigma of divorce was not only specific to Pakistani women. For example, women in India also tolerated IPV and they did not want to be as accused of “betrayal of their families” or to lose their identity as “Indian women” (Abraham [1998]; Mehrotra and Calasanti [2010]) and the combination of personal and family goals forced women to compromise and to stay in abusive relationships (Morash et al. [2008]).
Another reason to stay in an abusive relationship reported by some women was the primacy of their family institution. For these women, family was a part and parcel of their lives and they didn’t want to break up their families. The women knew that the damage caused by divorce would not be restricted to their personal life; the damage could be so pervasive and overwhelming that it could extend to the women’s parents and even to their siblings. The data revealed that the women wanted to avoid confrontation with their husbands. As a part of their socialization, most of them preferred to “wait for a better time”. In order to preserve their family honor, they wanted to avoid bickering and “kept it all inside the belly”. Women also know that their relatives and community will not encourage them if they air private family affairs in public. Another reason to remain in an abusive marriage was economic dependency on the husband.
Despite many limitations and vulnerabilities, Pakistani immigrant women were also aware of some “opportunities” and “positive points” about being in Germany. Firstly, they knew that their household work was being acknowledged and valued by their husbands. This may not be the case in Pakistan because of the joint or extended family system. For example, in Pakistan, somebody else (e.g., sister-in-law or mother-in-law) could perform a wife’s household work temporarily if she refuses or is unable to perform household routines. But in Germany, the women knew that nobody else could take over their responsibilities and, for that matter, their husbands were dependent on them.
Getting specialized care
Only one woman, who got divorced after bearing nine years of abuse from her husband in Germany, sought help from formal care-providing institutions. While narrating her perspective, she told that earlier she was afraid of the police. But when she contacted them, their behavior was different from Pakistani police. Based on her observations, she said that many South Asian women who experienced IPV did not know about the specialized services and institutions that are available to help such women. While narrating her own experiences in a Frauenhaus (German word for women’s shelter home) she stated:
For years, I had no knowledge about these services. One day, I visited the university with my ex-husband. There I saw a brochure from the social services office and then I called them for help. They were very cooperative. They arranged my stay in the Frauenhaus.
Obstacles to getting specialized care
During our interviews, the abused women narrated many factors which discouraged them from seeking help from formal institutions. The reasons include: (a) the inability to understand the structure and functioning of the care-providing institutions; (b) a lack of trust in the institutions’ capacity and commitment to solve the problems; (c) suspicion about the unknown and unpredictable consequences of the contact; and, (d) the women’s inability to explain their problem and convince people of their need for appropriate help.