3 Asian Community: Utah State-Wide Needs Assessment of Domestic Violence, Sexual Violence, and Human Trafficking

Domestic violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking are prevalent issues in Utah. There are about 33.6% and 21.4% of women and men had experienced physical threats from intimate partners, respectively in Utah (Smith et al., 2017). Because of the linguistic and/or cultural barriers, few studies have explored how violence impacts Asian American or immigrant communities, which suggests that researchers should pay more attention to the Asian community to better assess the needs of victims of domestic violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking. This project is part of the state–wide needs assessment on domestic violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking that aims to explore what service needs would benefit anti–violence efforts in Utah, and mainly focus on Asian immigrant and diasporic communities in Utah. This study adopted mixed methods including quantitative methods (online survey) and qualitative methods (interview). The result shows that 1) the current legal resources for victims of violence are insufficient, 2) factors that impact insufficient legal resources include bureaucracy, unaffordable services, the rejection of services/support, the unawareness of legal services, and lack staff/providers, and 3) pressing legal needs such as divorce, custody of a child, protective/restraining order, immigration, legal needs related to domestic violence, and legal needs related to sexual violence.

Bibliography

Smith, S. G., Basile, K. C., Gilbert, L. K., Merrick, M. T., Patel, N., Walling, M., & Jain, A. (2017). National intimate partner and sexual violence survey (NISVS): 2010-2012 state report. Volpp, L. (2002). On culture, difference, and domestic violence. Am. UJ Gender Soc. Pol’y & L., 11, 393.