Highlights
- Domestic violence (DV) is often diminished or dismissed among the Chinese community.
- One victim-survivor says her post on a Chinese social media platform was quickly removed.
- Experts say DV resources need to be improved and made more visible.
Ms Gu*, who said she endured months of abuse at the hands of her ex-partner, posted images of what she suffered as well as a step-by-step, self-help guide to others who might be experiencing something similar.
However, she claimed her post, shared on a Chinese Instagram-like social media platform called Red, was effectively "censored" by being swiftly removed within 24 hours.
“The line between care and control can be very blurry,” Fan Yang, a research assistant at the Alfred Deakin Institute at Deakin University, said. “When the relationship doesn’t work, control is manipulation.”
Ms Yang said that even though Chinese social media censorship didn’t usually apply to a specific topic like domestic violence as opposed to political content, the regulatory framework of some Chinese social media platforms was deliberately vague.
“What kind of content is prohibited is not clearly identified on those platforms’ regulation (outlines) because they want to expose vagueness to prohibit potential risky content,” she said, as brutal violence against women might trigger an unwanted wave of anger on Chinese internet sites.
Ms Gu said she and her now ex-partner flew to Melbourne from Shanghai as international students at the start of this year but their new life had quickly soured after her boyfriend started beating her within the first month of their moving into a Melbourne apartment.
Ms Gu, a Chinese international student, posted images of her severe injuries on a Chinese social media platform before they were removed by censors. Source: SBS
Carer or controller?
Ms Gu said she was not allowed to leave home without her ex-partner because “he said he worried about my safety”.
Ms Gu, who had no family or friends in Australia, said she was required to reply to all text messages from her ex-partner on WeChat immediately, no matter what she was doing, and the situation could be much worse at home because the former couple spent most of the time there doing online courses.
Physical violence could happen anytime, “you never know what will provoke him,” Ms Gu said.
She told SBS Chinese that she was forced to maintain the apartment to an extreme level of cleanliness and serve food to her ex-partner, who would sit on the couch for days at a time.
“Sometimes, I was not allowed to go to the toilet because he thought that was dirty,” she said.
“I was crying every night and thinking why [did] I [ever] come to Australia.”
Dr Yee Man Louie, a domestic violence survivor turned advocate and an emergent career researcher at RMIT, pointed out that the “careful surveillance” that Ms Gu experienced could be a tool used by an abuser in intimate partner violence.
“Her experience is echoed in a lot of the experiences of my interviewees [in my research],” she said.
She said Chinese women victim-survivors “are not subjected to one single form of abuse”, rather, there were multiple forms of abuse, including but not limited to “emotional, verbal, physical, sexual or financial”.
In , she said victim-survivors, who immigrated from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, faced a “unique challenge”.
Her research, drawing on the experiences of domestic violence frontline workers, found that women were “being controlled or stalked by smartphone, GPS, social media or email".
Language barriers and a lack of connections often make it more difficult for Chinese victims of domestic violence to access help. Source: pexels/Karolina Grabowska
Domestic abuse not just severe physical violence
Dr Louie said some Chinese women victim-survivors “would only categorise severe physical violence as domestic violence”.
“Even like a slap and a push… they wouldn’t think that was domestic violence because they don’t think it’s serious enough,” she told SBS Chinese.
I asked them what they thought was serious, [and] they would answer, ‘like I end up in a hospital'.
Ms Gu's English teacher was the one who eventually provided the assistance she needed to escape her abuser.
“He (Ms Gu’s ex-partner) knew that I would go downstairs to throw out the trash every day,” she said, and that became the chance for her to sneak out one day in April.
“I grabbed the waste dressed in my loungewear, went downstairs, then ran to campus.”
The gaps between Australia and China regarding DV
Ms Gu said she had been almost flattered by all the service and help she had received after she reported the abuse to the police.
“I didn’t need to do anything after that,” she said, “they kept telling me that I was so brave, and I’d done a very good job. Now (to) leave everything to them.”
She said she contacted and was immediately offered a free hotel room to stay in.
"I (later) moved from the hotel to a safe place with a volunteer as I felt low and lonely. I had access to one free counselling session per day. I even received a package with clothes and washing detergent. Social workers also helped me apply for rent allowance," she said.
Even though Ms Gu said her ex-partner had publicly abused her once in Shanghai, passerbys had "turned a blind eye" because of the tolerance of DV in China.
Ms Gu said she received hundreds of supportive messages and a few victim-blaming comments after she posted her experience. Source: SBS
Researchers found that "nearly half of law enforcement personnel are likely to not make arrests of domestic violence abusers," based on a study about in 2021.
Dr Louie said that everyday people and the wider society's acceptance of intimate partner violence determined their reaction when they witnessed it first-hand.
In addition, she said many people believed domestic violence should be viewed as just an inconvenient part of the family dynamic, because the ultimate goal was always "family harmony".
The limited multilingual services and the unrevealed demographic
Yuwen Huang, a NSW Supreme Court solicitor who works for a migration agent, said that he had counseled more than 10 clients on domestic violence claims during his six-year career.
“Some people might not be sure about whether they’ve experienced domestic violence (DV),” he said, adding that most of his clients were tied to their alleged perpetrators through partner visa applications.
Mr Huang posted an article and a video in Mandarin explaining how to solve visa issues when someone had experienced DV under Australian migration law. “Also, we provide information about how to call the police and how they operate,” he said.
Some victims of domestic violence are unsure of how to seek help. Source: Getty images
However, Dr Louie said multilingual support materials were still very limited in Australia. “There are materials in languages, but the problem is how can they be accessed?” she said.
Ms Gu said one of the most important motivators for her sharing her experience was to assist more people like her to find help.
In contrast, she said she had found it very difficult to search for helpful information about domestic violence, especially when she had also faced a language barrier and a lack of connections in Australia.
The first time she said she had heard about Safe Steps was from a WeChat group, which featured tips from Chinese Australians on living in Australia.
Dr Louie said private Facebook groups and Twitter could provide helpful advice for survivors searching for information as well.
However, before they could access professional DV services, survivors with bilingual backgrounds still needed basic English skills, “and that is still a barrier,” she said.
By way of an example, the direct translation of the question: "Are you safe at home?" would not ordinarily be associated with domestic violence, she said.
Former MP Gladys Liu founded a Chinese DV helpline called SHERO on WeChat, which, while seen by some as positive, was also not widely known based on Dr Louie’s research.
The former Member for Chisholm Gladys Lui spearheaded resources to assist victims of domestic violence. Source: AAP
“The establishment of SHERO was done to cut running costs and utilise the reachability of WeChat among Chinese-speaking members of local Chinese communities,” she wrote in her thesis about
The other significant issue noted by Dr Louie was that DV victim-survivors with Chinese backgrounds were “hidden”.
“I was told that (authorities) never hear reports from victims from China or Hong Kong,” Dr Louie said while recalling a conversation with a DV services’ frontline social worker.
There’s so much to do,” Dr Louie said, “… breaking the silence, bridging the gaps, and removing the barriers but, looking back, the system has improved a bit compared to a few decades ago."
A new challenging journey
Mr Huang noticed that over the past two years, alleged DV victim-survivors had become more aware of what they had experienced and how to seek help.
Dr Louie said she believed that improving understanding of domestic and family violence in all aspects of society would be very helpful.
“School teachers, social workers, solicitors … they can all be the reachable people who could provide help,” she said.
And as for Ms Gu, she has since landed a new job at a local restaurant and rented a place with the rent allowance provided by Safe Steps. “I’m saving money for my tuition fees,” she said.
Dr Louis said healing as well as taking care of practical needs such as housing and jobs was a long journey for victim-survivors and Ms Gu’s new adventure had only just begun.
*Name changed to protect the person’s identity.
If you or someone you know is impacted by family and domestic violence or sexual assault, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit . The Men’s Referral Service provides advice for men on domestic violence and can be contacted on 1300 766 491. In an emergency, call 000.
