Breaking the web of abuse and silence: voices of battered women in Japan.
Mieko Yoshihama.
Author's Abstract: COPYRIGHT 2002 National Association of Social Workers
This article presents the findings of a focus group research project with battered women in Tokyo, Japan. Participants' narratives of their experience with their partners' violence suggest a web of entrapment, from which women saw little possibility of escape. The partners' physical violence, interference with the women's social participation, isolation from supportive networks, and degradation and debasement entrapped participants. The victim-blaming attitudes of family, friends, and professionals, as well as the lack of assistance programs and police protection often reinforced the web. When these women took the risk of exposing what was long considered private and shameful, isolation was broken. Designed as an action research project, the study resulted in the formation of the Japan's first community-based support group for battered women. The article discusses implications for social work practice and research with immigrant battered women, those from Japan in particular.
Social Workers
Around the globe, violence against women by their partners (domestic violence) is prevalent and threatens women's well-being (Heise, 1994; United Nations, Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs, 1989).In the United States research on this topic has proliferated over the past 2[1/21decades, documenting the high rates of domestic violence (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980; Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998). Studies have identified ways in which male domination in private and public spheres perpetuates men's use of violence against a female partner
(for example, Martin, 1981; Schechter, 1982).Although domestic violence is prevalent across national and cultural boundaries, substantial variations have been found in the rate and severity of violence occurring both within and among countries (Counts, Ayers, Brown, & Campbell, 1992;Levinson, 1989). For example, in the United States, higher rates of domestic violence were found in states where greater disparity existed between women and men in economic, PO litical, and legal spheres (Yllo & Straus, 1990). Cross-cultural and cross-national studies of the relationship between domestic violence and women's status relative to men's, however, are limited primarily to those conducted by Western anthropologists (for example, Levinson) or to surveys using Eurocentric methodologies without regard for sociocultural variations (Kumagai & Straus, 1983). Through focus groups, this study investigated the ways in which women in Japan respond to domestic violence. Designed as an action research project, the study resulted in the formation of a community-based support group for battered women. Its results add to the growing body of knowledge on women's experiences of domestic violence around the world and have implications for practice and research inthe United States among Asian Pacific Islander populations.
Domestic Violence in Japan
Earlier studies of domestic violence found a lower rate of domestic violence among Japanese couples compared with those in the United States (Kumagai, 1979; Kumagai & Straus, 1983). Researchers attributed this lower rate to "a quiet, nonexpressive Japanese culture as opposed to a
verbal, expressive American culture" (Kumagai, p. 91) and to "the movement towards equal rights between the sexes" (Kumagai & Straus, p. 385) in the United States. Available statistics, however, point to the serious nature of domestic violence in Japan, illuminating some striking similarities to statistics on domestic violence in the United States. For example, approximately one-third of female murder victims in Japan are killed by their male intimate partners (Keisatsucho, 1995), a proportion similar to that found in the United States (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1995). Husbands and boyfriends are the most common perpetrators of assault and battery against family members in both Japan and the United States (Craven, 1997; Keisatsucho). However, the institutional responses to this grave social problem in the United States and Japan present stark differences. The former is characterizedby the gradual development over the past 2[ 1/21 decades of social policies and services. Until passage in Japan of the Law Relating to the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims (Domestic Violence Prevention Act, hereinafter) in 200 1, no social policies or services existed that specifically addressed the problem of domestic violence (Yoshihama, 1998,2002). In the absence of specialized services, Japanese women seek refuge from their male partners' violence at public women's centers or homes for mothers and children. On average, battered women make up one-third of women using these facilities in Japan (Nihon Bengoshi Rengokai, 1995). Predicated on the residual model of social welfare, these public programs for women offer only a limited range of predominantly rehabilitative services. In fact, public women's centers were originally established under the Prostitution Prevention Law of 1956 [Baishun Boshiho] to rehabilitate "women in need of protection" from prostitution and other "deviant" or otherwise undesirable behaviors. These public women's centers, like other public assistance programs that impose stringent eligibility criteria, are viewed as the last resort after all informal sources of support have failed. Little, if any, attention is paid to eradicating the root causes of domestic violence or other social problems that led to the clients' service needs. Neither promotion of women's self-determination nor empowerment is emphasized. Although conciliation is used in the United States and Japan as a means to resolve family disputes such as divorce, the role of conciliators differs cross-nationally, which has significant ramifications for the welfare of battered women in Japan. Under Japanese family law, conciliation is required if one of the parties refuses the other's wish to divorce (Kaji Shinpanho, 1947, art. 18). Only after conciliation fails to produce an agreement by both parties can a divorce by court decree be requested. Conciliators in Japan can exercise a considerable degree of discretion as to whether a divorce is granted (Bryant, 1988; Saiko Saibansho Jimusokyoku, 1990). In contrast, albeit variations exist among state statutes, conciliators in the United States mediate matters such as custody and division of property but do not influence whether a divorce should be granted. When their wish for divorce is denied by their abusive husbands, battered women in Japan request conciliation in the hope of securing an escape from an abusive marriage. More women file for conciliation than men (39,074 versus 15,412 in 1997), and annually more than 30 percent of petitions filed by wives were because of husbands' physical violence (Saiko Saibansho Jimusokyoku, 1998). A study of conciliation cases elucidated the serious nature of husbands' violence, including hitting with a wooden stick, stabbing with a knife, and pouring heating oil on the wife and attempting to set her on fire (Kumamoto Family Court, 1991).
Changing Recognition
The limited institutional responses to domestic violence in Japan may reflect prevailing attitudes among public officials and the general public that domestic violence is largely a private, personal matter, as opposed to a social problem or crime. Studies have documented a high degree of tolerance for domestic violence in Japan. One comparative study of college students found that respondents in Japan were more likely to justify men's use of violence against female partners and to minimize the seriousness of such an act than their US. counterparts (Frieze & Zubritzky, 1987). In another study of a random sample of adult Tokyo residents, almost half of the respondents, regardless of age, gender, or socioeconomic status, justified men's use of violence against their women partners under certain circumstances (Yoshihama, 1993). The proportion of respondents justifying domestic violence in Japan was substantially higher than that found in similar studies in the United States conducted in the 1970s and 1980s (for example, 16 percent to 31 percent) (Greenblat, 1983; Stark & McEvoy, 1970; Straus et al., 1980). Only recently has domestic violence slowly and gradually begun to be recognized as a serious social problem in Japan, a change attributable largely to the efforts of grassroots women's organizations. For example, a nationwide study conducted in 1999 by the Domestic Violence Action and Research Group (DVARG) identified the serious nature of domestic violence and how it cuts across socioeconomic boundaries. The study's findings were disseminated nationally and internationally, calling for changes in policies and forincreased services to address this hidden social problem in Japan (DVARG, 1993, 1995; Yoshihama & Sorenson, 1994). With the rise of international movements against gender-based violence during the early 1990s, such as the Global Campaign for Women's Human Rights (Bunch & Reilly, 1994), there has been a steady increase in research, community forums, workshops, symposia, exhibits, and popular and academic publications regarding domestic violence in Japan. The national government, as well as local gove mments, have begun addressing this issue by conducting research and establishing task forces (Sorifu, Danjo Kyodosankaku Shingikai, 1996;Tokyo-to, 1998). The first private battered women's shelter opened in 1993 in Tokyo, and currently there are more than 30 shelters nationwide. The central rolethat grassroots women's organizations have played in
increasing institutional responses to domestic violence in both the United States and Japan, albeit almost 20 years
apart, is noteworthy.
Need for Further Research
Although research and other consciousness-raising efforts in Japan have begun to increase societal awareness about domestic violence in general, more research is needed. Studies thus far have focused on estimating the proportion of women who have experienced domestic violence (for example, Tokyo-to, 1998) or analyzing the personal characteristics of women who have used public social services, private shelters, and telephone counseling programs (for example, Kanagawa Josei Senta, 1993; Nihon Bengoshi Rengokai, 1995). This type of research fails to elucidate women's subjective experiences, such as the ways in which women cope with the negative effects of a partner's violence. It also excludes perspectives and experiences of women who have not sought assistance. Consequently, barriers to seeking and using assistance programs remain unaddressed. In addition, little is known about the connection, if any, between the structural inequality in the public sphere in Japanese society and violence against women in the pr ivate sphere, in intimate relationships. This study of domestic violence represents the first study in Japan to use face-to-face interviews with a community-based sample of battered women. Through women'n narratives, I investigated the ways in which women in Japan perceive and respond to domestic violence and explored the sociocultural and structural factors that may hamper their attempts to keep themselves safe.
Method Study Design
This study used focus groups for several reasons. Focus groups--semistructured interviews in a group setting--allow participants to report their subjective perspectives and experiences and reflect on them (Morgan, 1997; Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990). Focus groups have been used with a wide range of research topics, including domestic violence (Davis & Srinivasan, 1995), and among diverse population
groups, including Asian Pacific Americans in the United States (Ho, 1990). A distinct advantage of focus groups
over individual interviews is the potential to facilitate intersubjectivity: Through listening to others' experiences and perspectives, participants may develop increased insight and understanding of their own situation. The intersubjectivity that can emerge from focus groups may be
particularly important in research on domestic violence, a topic long considered a personal issue. Interviews in a group setting may not only facilitate an understanding of domestic violence as a social issue, but also help break a sense of isolation among study participants.Although no earlier published studies in Japan have used focus groups, the feasibility of this method emerged from my professional experience in Japan. Forexample, at community-based meetings on domestic violence and through a nationwide survey, participants expressed a considerable degree of willingness to discuss personal experiences with domestic violence. In this study, five to six participants were in each focus group, smaller than the six to 12 recommended in the literature (Morgan, 1997; Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990; Vaughn, Schumm, & Sinagub, 1996). This decision reflected my experience in conducting focus groups with women of Asian Pacific descent in the United States in which participants tended to speak to the facilitators by taking turns, rather than interacting with other participants. A smaller group size was used to facilitate more interaction among participants.
Participant Recruitment
To recruit women of various backgrounds, multiple methods were used, including sending a recruitment flyer and letter of introduction to more than 35 organizations and professionals in the Greater Tokyo area with whom battered women come into contact (for example, shelters,
attorneys) and distributing flyers at public women's centers and other locations frequented by women. In addition, an announcement about the study was placed in major national and local newspapers. In these recruitment materials, domestic violence was defined as violence perpetrated by an intimate male partner, including physical, emotional, and sexual violence. One of the cofacilitators, who resided near Tokyo, assisted in the distribution of recruitment materials and handled participant registration and inquiries. Four focus group sessions were scheduled at different
times of the day--that is, weekday morning, afternoon, and evening and weekend afternoon--to facilitate the participation of women with various backgrounds and time constraints. Anticipating nonattendance to be 15 percent to 20 percent, we accepted registration of more than six women per session. A total of 32 women were registered for one of the four sessions of their choosing, and more than a dozen women were turned away because all sessions were filled.
Participants
Eighteen of the 32 women participated (14 women either called to cancel or did not show up). Thirteen participants responded to a newspaper article, whereas others obtained a recruitment flyer at a public women's center or from a counselor. Participants' ages ranged from the 20s to the
60s; two-thirds were 40 and older. All had experienced violence at the hands of their husbands, except for one who had been abused by her boyfriend. Three had since been divorced, seven had separated or ended the relationship, and eight were still married to the perpetrator at the time of the interview; however, three of the eight married women described their marital status as functionally divorced (for example, separate sleeping quarters and eating arrangements and, at times, financial matters while cohabiting with the spouse). Partners' occupational
backgrounds ranged from blue-collar to managerial and professional positions, including a college professor. At the time of the focus group, two-thirds of the participants were working. The majority had some contact with outside agencies, most commonly family court, but a few had none.
Session Procedures
One of two cofacilitators and I conducted each session. Sessions lasted for two hours and were held in a rented meeting room at a public multipurpose women's center and YWCA in central Tokyo, which offered convenient access and building security. On-site child care was provided. Approval from the Institutional Review Board was obtained from a U.S. university where I held a faculty position. Before the sessions began, participants received a written explanation that detailed the study's purpose and procedures, their rights as participants, and my background. At the beginning of the sessions, facilitators explained these issues verbally, responded to questions, and obtained verbal consent to participate. To ensure anonymity, participants were asked to select a name to use during the focus group session (for example, pseudonym, nickname, or first name). Sessions were audiotaped. During the interview, participants were asked to describe in their own words the types of violence they had experienced and situational contexts, their perceptions about their partner's violence, the coping strategies they used, and the perceived influences of Japanese culture, society, or societal structure on their experience. Participants received a small amount of cash as partial reimbursement for travel and other expenses, a list of books and articles about domestic violence, and a list of assistance programs. At the conclusion of the session, participants were asked whether they would be interested in forming a support group for women who have experienced a partner's violence.
Analysis
Taped interviews were transcribed, and subsequently content analyzed using grounded theory (Glaser, 1978; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The entire analysis was conducted in Japanese except for translating participants' narratives for inclusion in this article. A Japanese-speaking graduate-level research assistant and I reviewed the transcripts to identify dimensions of participants' narratives regarding the type and situational contexts of violence experienced, women's perceptions about the violence, coping strategies used, and the Japanese sociocultural and structural influences. These dimensions were coded on the basis of units of meaning or themes that arose from the women's narratives, rather than on specific words or phrases used by respondents. An initial set of codes was compared and discussed, followed by repeated reviews of the transcripts and revisions to the initial coding list to develop codes that better corresponded to the participants' narratives. Subsequently, conceptual or thematic codes were derived.
Results Entrapment: Dynamics of Domestic Violence
The types of partners' violence or situational contexts of violent episodes varied considerably among participants, ranging from slapping, punching, kicking, dragging, and strangling. Household items, furniture, knives, and guns were used as weapons, often inflicting grave injuries. Alcohol may or may not have been involved at the time of the violent incidents. Some women were forced to have sex, which was often accompanied by physical violence. Many women reported that they were physically abused when they refused to have sex. One woman suffered from multiple unwanted pregnancies because of her partner's refusal to use contraception. Violence during pregnancy
threatened the health of the woman and her fetus. Verbal put-downs were common and included, "idiot""femalepig,'' "useless," and derogatory terms referring to feces. Despite the variations in the situational contexts in which participants were victimized, partners invariably seemed to use violence to deprive the women of their integrity. Not only did partners' degrading verbal remarks attack the women's sense of competence as a person, woman, worker, wife, and mother, they often degraded the women's prescribed role itself. A husband of one woman repeatedly
said to her, often in front of their children and others, "Your sole purpose is to do the laundry, cook, and clean, (you are) worth nothing else. 'I Another participant, whose husband frequently accused her of not having satisfied him sexually, would demand her sexual availability by
screaming, "Just let me use a hole." Such sexual objectification, coupled with recurrent physical violence, had made her, previously an "optimistic and adventurous"Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The entire analysis was conducted in Japanese except for translating participants' narratives for inclusion in this article. A Japanese-speaking graduate-level research assistant and I reviewed the transcripts to identify dimensions of participants' narratives regarding the type and situational contexts of violence experienced, women's perceptions about the violence, coping strategies used, and the Japanese sociocultural and structural influences. These dimensions were coded on the basis of units of meaning or themes that arose from the women's narratives, rather than on specific words or phrases used by respondents. An initial set of codes was compared and discussed, followed by repeated reviews of the transcripts and revisions to the initial coding list to develop codes that better corresponded to the participants' narratives. Subsequently, conceptual or thematic codes were derived. Attack by an alien was less damaging than attack by a partner. Various factors hindered the recognition of violence as a serious problem, including low frequency and situational context (for example, the husband became violent when she refused to have sex). One woman, whose former husband was a U.S. military serviceman stationed in Japan, had thought of his violent behaviors as a national characteristic--an immutable factor--based on the violent images depicted in American movies. She recounted: "It was as though I had a shield on my eyes, through which I viewed my husband's behavior. That's why I did not realize how abnormal the situation was."
Considering the difficulty of recognizing physical violence as a problem, it was even more difficult to recognize a partner's nonphysical acts as violence. This was true for participants themselves, as well as for family, friends, and professionals to whom they turned for assistance.
This underrecognition occurred in conjunction with a wide array of partners' efforts to minimize, justify, or distort the meaning of their violent actions. Many women's partners told them that they were battered because they were doing an inadequate job as a woman, wife, and mother. One woman stated that she had believed her husband's elaborate threat that if she refused his sexual demands and later tried to file for divorce she would be denied custody of her children on the grounds that she had neglected her wifely duties. Information that contradicted the partner's justifications was crucial in bringing about changes in participants' perceptions and recognition. For example, at the suggestion of a caseworker at a local welfare department, one woman began keeping a journal documenting her husband's abusive behavior. Against this documentation, her own or her husband's attempts to minimize the seriousness of the violence were defeated. Shortly after, she left him. For some participants, friends provided a view that contradicted their own or their partners' minimization and denial of the violence. Books and articles also contributed to perceptual or cognitive changes. One woman described reading an article that held the perpetrator responsible for using and stopping violence: "I felt like the blindfold that had been put on my eyes was crumbling."
Surviving
Participants recounted pain, fear, disbelief, helplessness, a sense of powerlessness, self-doubt, and confusion. Phrases such as "His violence deprived me of the last drop of my spirit" and "The violence was so severe that I myself began to deny myself echo a sense of extreme desperation. Others stated, "I have long endured'' and "All I knew was to endure, endure, and endure more!" Referring to a Japanese proverb that emphasizes the virtue of perseverance, "Three years on a rock [changes will come about]," one woman described her predicament: "Over 27 years on a rock, no change has resulted." Despite the use of humor, a deep sense of pain was evident. Her 27-year marriage was filled withdespair and forced silence. One woman felt that her boyfriend's violence was beyond her control, defying any of her attempts to prevent it. When asked how she coped, her initial response was: I focused on how to endure his violence with the least amount of damage. I spent a lot of energy figuring out howl could feel less pain. For example, I thought about the way in which his violence would not leave marks. I would relax my muscles when he grabbed me. In this way, I would not get hurt as much when he dragged me across the room. When he reached for a kitchen knife, I would purposefully go near him. If I tried to run away, he would throw it. She also stated that while being beaten she would think about eating a piece of chocolate cake after the beating was over. A certain degree of dissociation helped her persevere. The women's coping was not static and varied depending on the situational contexts. Some fought back literally, and others in various symbolic ways: for example, taking pictures of injuries, displaying 30 to 50 copies of divorce applications around the house, refusing to clean up the mess caused by the partner's destruction, demanding her unpaid salary from a family-owned business, claiming her right to family savings, and telling friends to suspect her husband as the murderer if she died. Many left the relationship temporarily or permanently.
Overcoming Obstacles to Safety
The decision to leave was not easy for many and was often clouded by worries over the effect of parental separation on children, by financial worries, or by fear of escalating violence. The action to leave was even harder, often hampered by structural barriers such as mandatory conciliation when the husband refused to divorce. Almost half of the participants were involved in conciliation at one point. One participant reported that her suffering was taken lightly and she had to resort to an emotional plea, to which a conciliator responded, "You are too emotional," When she reported that her husband's lack of compliance with contraception resulted in her undergoing four abortions, a conciliator said, "Your husband must be very patent sexually." One extreme case involved the conciliator's interference with a woman's wish to divorce for nine years. skepticism that she might change her mind and retract her request just like other young women. When a pe rmission
to divorce was rendered nine years later, a conciliator told her, "Now I know that you were really serious." Additional barriers to safety included inadequate responses by the police and the lack of assistance programs, such as shelters. One participant was told by a police officer, "We can't do anything because this is a domestic matter." Many participants found access to public women's counseling programs difficult because of the limited hours of operation and other bureaucratic procedures. Counselors in private practice were scarce and costly, because national health insurance does not cover their services. Few, if any, private shelters were available when needed. One participant stated,
"I wish I had known about a private shelter. With my parents deceased, I had no place to run to." (Incidentally, this participant left home several months later and went to one of the private shelters that she learned about through participation in the focus group.) When formal assistance programs failed to provide needed help, some turned to a fortune-teller or books; others turned to workshops or study groups on feminism and do mestic violence., Almost all participants referred to the enormous difficulty they experienced in being understood. Friends and family, albeit mostly well meaning, tended to discount the seriousness of the abuse and the degree of pain and suffering. The women who sought help from outside agencies and professionals often encountered responses that were indifferent at best and harmful in many cases: You are too blunt. You need to change the way you speak to your husband. (a counselor in private practice) You say your husband does not contribute financially, but he must make a fairly good salary as a division chief. He must be making more than us.... You should just lure him tactfully to give you money. (a conciliator at a family court) Your husband is such a nice gentleman. There must be something about you that causes his violence. Perhaps, you don't know how to defer to him. (You should endure a little bit longer. You are a mother, and as a mother you must learn to endure as much as you can. (a caseworker at a local welfare department)
One woman stated, "Whichever program I turned to, my pains, desperation, and cries for help were negated and ignored." Feeling she had no place to go, the only available option she saw was ending her life. There were periods of her life when she was consumed by this thought:
When I cooked, I would think about cutting myself with a knife. When I crossed a railroad, I contemplated whether to wait for trains to pass by. When I crossed a street, I vacillated whether to run a red light. "Second injuries" inflicted by the very people to whom these women turned for help intensified the pain and a sense of entrapment caused by their primary injuries--partners' violence.
Study Participation as an Act of Breaking the Silence
When silence was broken, pent-up emotions and energy flooded out. The decision to participate in the research project, however, was not easy for many. Referring to the sense of fear, anxiety, and ambivalence they felt about participation, some of the participants empathized with
those who had registered but did not attend the focus group session. During the focus group interview, participants expressed, explicitly or implicitly, a need for a space where they could share their pain and struggles, a place to be listened to and understood without being judged. Many participants stated that this need prompted them to
participate in the study. At the conclusion of the interview, when asked whether they would be interested in forming an ongoing support group, all but two expressed such an interest. After the sessions were over, many participants exchanged phone numbers, continued to talk in the lobby, or walked together to a nearby train station. Out of this focus group project, a community-based support group for women emerged as a collaborative project of the participants and the researchers. The group met regularly, and internal leadership emerged gradually. (In 2001
members of the support group agreed to stop meeting, and several members formed a grassroots advocacy organization.)
Discussion
Web of Abuse, Entrapment, and Silence
The findings of this study present a very different picture from "a quiet, non-expressive Japanese culture" (Kumagai, 1979, p. 91). Male partners not only used serious physical and sexual violence against women, but also were quite expressive in degrading individual women and women's roles and places in society through name calling, various forms of verbal and emotional debasement, insults, and sexual objectification. Participants' narratives of their experience with their partners' violence suggest a progressively tightening web, from which women saw little possibility of escape. The partners' actual violence, interference with social participation (for example, employment), and isolation from supportive networks, coupled with degradation and debasement, threatened the women's sense of self. The
perpetrator would deny and minimize the woman's suffering, justify his use of violence, and blame her for causing the violence. Such partners' acts defied women's attempts to make sense of what was befalling them, adding to the sense of confusion and making the web invisible. This web was often reinforced by the victim-blaming attitudes of family, friends, and professionals, coupled with the lack of public recognition of domestic violence as a serious social problem in Japan. The web is strikingly similar to the experience of domestic violence among battered women in Western countries (Fiene, 1995; Kirkwood, 1993) and among those of Japanese descent in the United States (Yoshihama, 2000).
Whereas the findings of this study and others point to widespread oppression of women, which reinforces male intimate partners' coercive violence, the current structure of Japanese society seems to provide a particularly fertile ground for the web of partner abuse that entraps women. Specifically, the residual welfare system, the punitive and rehabilitation-focused social services and the resultant lackof assistance programs designed for battered women, as well as the absence of police protection, undermined the participants' ability to keep themselves safe. Moreover, the system of mandatory conciliation further trapped battered women in abusive marriages when the husbands refused to divorce. For many years, shame, lack of formal assistance, and fear of escalating violence have silenced battered women in Japan. Tenaciously and creatively, the participants developed ways to keep themselves safe. Thus, they were active agents in their survival. For many, information contradicting views imposed by partners (for example, attributing the cause of the violence to the women and minimizing the seriousness of the violence) was critical to a turning point at which they broke away from the web of abuse, entrapment, and silence.
Implications for Social Work Practice and Policy in Japan
Recent reports of the serious nature of physical and other types of violence perpetrated by male partners, including this study, pose the question of whether domestic violence in Japan is new and related to westernization, rapid change, industrialization, and changing gender roles. Domestic violence in Japan only began to be recognized as a significant social problem in the early 1990s, and consequently, little data are available that would allow for empirical analysis in response to this question. Statistics on conciliation applications indicate that the proportion of women seeking conciliation because of their husbands' physical violence has been consistently high over the past several decades (approximately 30 percent). As this study found, domestic violence is linked to women's oppression, a finding consistent with those in other countries. It appears that the current report of the serious nature of domestic violence in Japan reflects an increased degree of public awareness and women's willingness to disc lose their victimization experiences. Barriers to safety identified by focus group participants in Japan are many,and participants' experiences attest to an urgent need for reform of social policy and services in Japan. Participants' negative experiences with conciliators of family court, police officers, welfare caseworkers, and counselors and therapists in both public and private sectors point to a serious breach of professional standards. Training for professionals and paraprofessionals who encounter battered women is urgently needed. In the United States, such training has been found to be effective in increasing knowledge and skills, as well as in changing attitudes toward domestic violence and battered women among practitioners in the fields of child welfare and health care (Magen & Conroy, 1998; McLeer & Anwar, 1980). Battered women in Japan have access to a limited range of available social services programs, which are predicated on the residual model of social welfare. Many remarks made by case workers of the welfare departments and 0th er helping professionals illustrate the primacy of collective family welfare, as opposed to individual women's welfare and rights. What is needed in Japan is not the mere increase
of social services programs for battered women, but the reconceptualization of welfare policies and services into a broader, more comprehensive approach--the universal model of social welfare.
Implications for Working with Immigrants in the United States
Immigrants bring with them knowledge and perceptions shaped by experiences in their countries of origin. Although alternative viewpoints may gradually be incorporated upon contact with a new social system in a new country, viewpoints shaped in the country of origin continue to exert a strong influence on the ways in which immigrants respond to crises such as domestic violence. This study elucidated experiences in Japan that may underlie a particular perspective shared among immigrant women from Japan concerning available options. For
example, the system of mandatory conciliation in Japan can prevent women from divorcing an abusive partner. Mandatory conciliation contributes to the perception that divorce is not an option if your spouse objects. This view resonates with my experience in California in working with battered immigrant women from Japan, where they would frequently say, "I can't get a divorce because my husband refused." Because the idea that they could obtain a divorce without consent from their h usband in the United States was new and out of their frame of reference, it sometimes took several repeated explanations before they understood the implication of this new information. Providing information on the social system in the United States in comparison to that in the country of origin may be effective not only in direct practice, but also in developing community education and outreach materials for specific immigrant communities. Practitioners' familiarity with the sociolegal systems in the immigrants' countries of origin is critical to enhancing their effectiveness in working with
immigrant battered women. Toward this end, studies of the immigrants' countries of origin play an important role.