Comments on: Migrant women’s empowerment in the city

By: Donna Butorac

Donna Butorac — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 08:48:30 +0000

Thanks for this interesting and timely article, Ingrid. I really enjoyed reading it, along with the Dreby and Schmalzbauer article, which made me reflect on what I heard about human geography and the experience of being a woman at the UN Women Breakfast for IWD this year. The guest speaker from PNG reported truly depressing statistics on domestic violence, in a country which still has no family protection legislation. Interestingly, the statistics on domestic violence vary by location, with overall figures of something like 67% of women, nationally, experiencing domestic violence at some point in their lives, but 100% of women in the highlands experiencing domestic violence. The women of PNG are pleading with Australia to take better notice of their situation, not only through providing much needed funding for protection initiatives, but also support to draft important legislation, so that at least when women come to report domestic violence, they have some recourse to protection in law and therefore some chance of gaining autonomy.

By: Li Jia

Li Jia — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 05:27:00 +0000

Dear Ingrid,
Many thanks for your sharing on women’s day. My birthplace is not a metropolitan city, but a comparatively small town bordering Burma where the transnational marriage is surprisingly popular. Sometimes, in a village one third of men marry Burmese girls and most of the Burmese women have lived with their Chinese husbands for several decades without any legal ID or residential permission. These couples are often living in a remote area lack of convenient access to social networks and linguistic support, and what makes Burmese girls live in a new destination for such a long period is really an interesting question for me to explore in depth. I’d also like to study whether the marital relationship correlates with Burmese women’s settlement in a similar context as described by Joanna and Leah.

One thing is for sure at the moment, there are many such villages in my hometown, and marrying a Burmese girl is not new to the locals, so Burmese women living in the same rural area may build their supportive friend community which might contribute a bit to their autonomy outside.