Abstract
Headlines such as “Man Jailed for Train Station Attack on Indian Student,” “Fatal Stabbing Hits Indian Student Hopes,” and “Indian Student Bashings on the Rise in Sydney” highlight violent crimes against male international students by strangers in public spaces. The media reports run contrary to the perceptions of our interviewees who suggest that violence against female international students by known perpetrators in private spaces is common. We argue that intersecting inequalities relating to gender, race, and class are often compounded by the status of “international student.” Discussions focus on various forms of gender-based violence and gender violence education and support programs in Australia and the United States.
Introduction
An estimated 3.6 million international students are undertaking tertiary education in a host country (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2012), of which approximately half are female. In 2011, there were approximately 224,469 female international students in Australia and 325,474 in the United States (Australian Education International [AEI], 2012; United Press, 2011). Being safe from crime and violence is important to international students (Coston, 2004; Marginson, Nyland, Sawir, & Forbes-Mewett, 2010; Mason, 2012; Sundeen, 1984). Newspaper headlines, such as “Man Jailed for Train Station Attack on Indian Student” (Ross, 2012), “Fatal Stabbing Hits Indian Student Hopes” (Lebihan, 2010), and “Indian Student Bashings on the Rise in Sydney” (Ramachandran, 2009), focus on violent crimes against male international students by strangers. This article explores less visible crime and violence against female international students by known male perpetrators, often in private spaces.
Despite relocating to a host country to better their lives, female international students may be confronted with what Morley (2011) identified as a hostile and toxic environment involving “gendered violence.” Morley used the term “gendered violence” to incorporate crime and sexual exploitation and harassment. Morley’s definition of gendered violence is a broad one, as it includes sexual harassment and exploitation that are not always crimes, though they may be illegal. In addition, sexual exploitation and harassment do not necessarily involve physical force, though the element of abuse of power involved in these incidents warrants the term violence. True (2010) described “gender-based violence” as violence directed against a woman because of her gender or as forms of violence in which women are overrepresented as victims. True associated violence against women with gender subordination resulting from the social construction of women as inferior. This entrenched social structure is maintained in different cultural settings with multiple intersecting vulnerabilities that include race and class as well as gender. It is widely held that gender-based violence is underreported because of fear of victimization, stigmatization, and a lack of confidence in procedures.
In this article, following Morley we use the term “gender-based violence” to include crime and violence, broadly defined and linked to gender, which is committed against female international students. The focus on gendered crime against female international students, we believe, assists in acknowledging the importance of giving voice to the gendered positions of women and men and dispelling the myths and challenging the assumptions that suggest men are more likely to be victimized.
Dunne, Humphreys, and Leach (2006) claimed that in the developing world, gendered violence exists throughout an entire education. Similarly, studies in the United States have discussed in depth the issue of gender-based violence against students (Dziech & Hawkins, 1998; Dziech & Weiner, 1990). However, despite much publicity and concern regarding the issue of crime against international students in Australia, the topic has attracted little research and even less relating to gender-based violence (for research on international students and crime generally, see Larsen, Payne, & Tomison, 2011; Mason, 2012). This gender blindness is surprising given that females make up approximately half the international students in higher education internationally.
The study draws on 65 interviews about international students and violence with key informants from Australia and the United States. It considers the incidence of gendered violence against female international students in particular, and how the intersecting vulnerabilities of gender, race, class, and international student status are implicated in such incidents. The study is a qualitative one, so no precise finding can be made about the frequency of such incidents. However, by focusing on the interviewees’ perceptions of gendered violence involving female international students, the article provides an alternative view to that of the male international students as victims of violence portrayed in the media. It also suggests that female international students tend to more often encounter gendered violence at the hands of people they know, typically in private spaces, rather than strangers in public places. The article also examines the associated and complex inequalities that contribute to the vulnerability of female international students.
We focus on three types of gendered violence. The first is transactional sex—the practice of exchanging sex for financial or lifestyle rewards. This type of sex tends to be regarded as distinct from formalized sex work and is best explained by poor economic circumstances (United States Agency for International Development [USAID], 2010). We also discuss sexual harassment, unwelcome sexual advances, or attention taking place in various settings, particularly at work and in educational settings. The third type of gendered violence we consider is intimate partner violence. Building on Crenshaw’s notion of “intersectionality,” we discuss how international students experience a unique set of intersecting inequalities, making them particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence. We argue that the status of international student compounds simultaneously operating vulnerabilities of class, race, and gender. Our final empirical section considers gender violence education and support services. Most of the data relate to Australia; however, the U.S. interviews add important and interesting insights. We outline the concept of “intersectionality” and review relevant literature before presenting the findings.
Intersectionality
The notion of intersectionality refers to the interaction of multiple vulnerabilities, including gender, race, class, and other categories of difference (Davis, 2008). These differences interact to compound inequalities relating to social and institutional influences, which play out in terms of power. The neglect of experiences encountered by women of color had been highlighted by Black feminists by the time Crenshaw (1989) developed the concept of intersectionality. Intersectionality dissects more simplified notions of gender to consider multiple identities that form a whole and interact in experiences of exclusion and subordination (Davis, 2008; Riley, 2004). The value of an intersectional analysis is that by taking into account multiple and intertwined vulnerabilities, it gives “voice” to marginalized women. Considered as both a theoretical and methodological tool, intersectionality allows an analysis of various power differentials and/or constraining normativities, which construct various inequalities and unjust social relations (Barad, 2003; Lykke, 2010).
Davis (2008) applauded the theory’s universal applicability and usefulness for understanding and analyzing individual or group experiences and structural and cultural influences, asserting that it offers new justification for the application of feminist theory. Poststructuralist approaches insist that different categorizations are pervasively interrelated without the possibility of separate analysis (see Prins, 2006; Staunaes, 2003). Mohanty (1998) suggested that rather than breaking down feminist theory that speaks of women as a homogeneous group, intersectionality attends to difference and diversity among women. It has an open-ended capacity to conceptualize fluid identities (Davis, 2008). Instead of separating experiences of oppression into pillars of gender, race, and class, an intersectional analysis observes intrinsically linked multiple and simultaneously operating vulnerabilities (Choo & Ferree, 2010; Hannah-Moffat, 2010). Intersectionality identifies subordination not only in terms of gender, race, and class but also through other simultaneously operating forms of subordination. Intersectionality analysis, then, allows for the extension of intersecting dimensions of inequality to incorporate vulnerabilities associated with international student status. These vulnerabilities include being in a foreign environment, often without adequate host country language and cultural skills, being separated from family and friends, and frequently having inadequate financial resources.
Intersectionality considers multiple identities capable of speaking to women’s vulnerabilities to gender-based violence. Sokoloff and Dupont (2005), for example, emphasized how domestic violence presents different struggles for different groups of already marginalized women in diverse communities. There is an extant literature on gender, race, cultural ideologies, socioeconomic circumstances, and the simultaneous vulnerability of international student status relevant to gender-based violence. This literature is reviewed prior to considering the specific experiences of gender-based violence against female international students described by our interviewees.
International Students and Gender-Based Violence
In their work on higher education in the developing countries of Ghana and Tanzania, Morley, Leach, and Lugg (2008) reflected on higher education participation and how it is impeded by gender and socioeconomic status. They noted that higher education policy eludes theory of difference and, as a consequence, unity structures of inequality are prioritized, or disadvantaged students are treated as homogeneous. This thinking applies to international students who tend to be regarded as homogeneous, despite gender, racial/cultural, socioeconomic, and academic differences. This article departs from the work of Morley et al. in terms of geographical context to higher education offered by the developed Western nations of Australia and the United States. The notion of intersecting inequalities, however, translates across borders, providing the theoretical framework for this study. The study considers higher education students primarily from non-English-speaking backgrounds in English-speaking host countries.
Dziech and Weiner (1984) were among the first to specifically address the topic of sexual harassment on campus (see also Dziech & Hawkins, 1998; Dziech & Weiner, 1990). Eyre (2000) and Zippel (2006) asserted that university settings can provide conditions for normalizing sexual harassment. Recent research links gender-based violence with the health of female international students and calls for educational institutions to provide student health promotion programs (Poljski, 2011). It has been found that “female [international] students are more likely than their male counterparts to experience discrimination (even within the international student community), physical abuse, sexual harassment and social exclusion during their stay in Australia” (Poljski, 2011, p. 17). Much of the gender-based violence committed against female international students is perpetrated by males from within the same cultural group with whom they have a personal relationship (Forbes-Mewett, 2008, 2011; Poljski, 2011). It is believed that some male international students who are no longer under the scrutiny of family and friends in their home country may use their newfound freedom to disrespect women. Female international students are also distanced from their social networks, which may make them more likely to enter into unhealthy relationships. Female international students with accompanying male partners who hold secondary visas have been found to be at risk due to the male attempting to reassert power through controlling behaviors and violence (Poljski, 2011). Further issues of dependence relate to circumstances where the woman is the secondary visa holder and her ability to stay in the host country depends on the continued relationship so that the power imbalance between man and woman is exacerbated. Accommodation, workplace, and education settings are also known to place female international students at risk (Forbes-Mewett, 2008, 2011; Pickering, Maher, & Gerard, 2009).
International student vulnerability to gender-based violence tends to be related to unfamiliarity with local communities (Coston, 2004; Sundeen, 1984) and “target attractiveness” because they are unlikely to fight back (Fisher, Sloan, Cullen, & Lu, 1998). Compared with local students, they do not enjoy the same rights and access to support systems to compensate for a lack of guardianship (Forbes-Mewett, 2008; Marginson et al., 2010). Even when support systems are available, they tend not to seek help. This reluctance has been attributed to a lack of knowledge about support services and also to shame. This is particularly the case for female international students who may be reluctant to report sexual harassment or assault because of shame, guilt, and embarrassment (Sable, Danis, Mauzy, & Gallagher, 2006). Adding further to the disincentives to report is a fear of not being believed, issues associated with confidentiality, and fear of retaliation by the offender. Female international students in particular have the added inequality/disadvantage of being vulnerable to power-imbalanced relationships with males, either within or less commonly outside their national groups. Vulnerability to gender-based violence can relate to race or cultural ideologies as international students tend to be exploited by individuals of their own national group who have been afforded misguided trust based on cultural commonalities. The vulnerability can also relate to their lack of knowledge of local cultural norms, which may be exploited by those inside and outside their national group. That large numbers of international students are financially insecure adds yet another intersecting layer of vulnerability.
The Research Approach
This study is part of a 4-year Australian Research Council funded project: International Student Safety from Crime. It is based on the perspectives of 65 individuals across Australia and the United States whose work involved providing support services to international students. Of these, 46 (22 male, 24 female) participants were from Australia and 19 (11 male, 8 female) were from the United States. The larger number of Australian interviews is indicative of the main focus of the study, with U.S. interviews providing a comparative element. With ages ranging from 26-66 years and with diverse cultural backgrounds, the participants included police officers, legal and government representatives, security staff, academics, and student support staff such as counselors and gender violence educators. Through public forums and email approaches, potential participants were extended an invitation to participate in a semistructured interview lasting approximately 1 hr. Public forums used to make the approach were organized independently by support service groups who allowed the researchers to announce their project and indicate that participants were being sought. Those who responded to the public forum approach provided contact details for the researchers to follow up. The majority of participants were approached by email and were chosen because their work roles related to providing support services to international students.
The interviews were conducted in Australia and the United States during the period 2010-2012. Interview questions concerned types, levels, and associated circumstances of crime, broadly applied to include other forms of violence. For instance, interview participants were asked questions such as: Are you aware of anything you believe to be a crime associated with international students? Are you aware of any forms of crime associated with international students that have not attracted much attention? Are you aware of any particular international groups that are more or less likely to be victims and/or perpetrators of crime? The interviews were analyzed to identify emerging themes (Bryman & Burgess, 1994), the strategy aiming to provide “access to the meanings people attribute to their experiences and social worlds” (Miller & Glassner, 1997, p. 100). Many of the interview participants’ responses concerned issues of gender-based violence that may not constitute a criminal offense.
We acknowledge the limitations presented by not interviewing students for this study and defend our approach based on past experience in gaining information from those who work closely with the group under investigation. Our research participants were well informed and gave generously of their time and their views. They spoke openly of the cases they had dealt with while maintaining confidentiality and respect for the international students involved. This was particularly important given it is acknowledged that gender-based violence is largely hidden, probably even from those who work closely with international students. However, in the context of the media publicity mentioned earlier in the article in relation to international students and crime that focused on violent attacks on males in public places by strangers, our approach has revealed interesting and suggestive findings. We present the perceptions of our interview participants in the following sections: transactional sex, sexual harassment, intimate partner violence, the unique characteristics associated with international student vulnerability and, finally, gender violence education and support services.
Research Participant Perceptions
It was widely held that female international students were particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence. The consensus was “a lot of crimes don’t get reported” and that gender-based violence was “kept hidden. . . . It is downplayed all the time.” This view was representative across Australia and the United States. However, taking into account the greater number of Australian interview participants, it was more frequently an issue raised by the Australian research participants. Although they were willing to discuss the issue, both male and female participants in Australia commented that it was a topic usually “swept under the carpet.” They generally thought support services were inadequate. In the United States, it was almost always female interviewees who commented on the issue of gender-based violence, which they freely discussed. The U.S. participants indicated that there were education and support programs in place. Almost all cases of gender-based violence discussed involved female international students as victims. The different types of gender-based violence are discussed below beginning with transactional sex.
Transactional Sex: “It’s Not Uncommon”
Transactional sex, as pointed out earlier, is distinct from formal sex work and involves exchanging sex for rewards. Some of the cases set out below would also constitute sexual harassment. In the context of international education, the involvement of female international students in transactional sex suggests particular vulnerabilities relating to social, economic, and cultural dimensions.
Young women may engage in transactional sex with older men to support their basic needs (e.g., food, clothing, school fees) or to obtain desirable consumer goods (e.g., cell phones, fashionable clothing, jewelery, meals at expensive restaurants) and the social status that goes with them. Gifts for sex may be seen as symbolizing the love and respect a man feels for his partner and the importance he places on the relationship. In contrast, “giving away” sex can stigmatize young women as “loose” and lacking self-respect. (USAID, 2010, n.p.)
The issue of transactional sex was raised in relation to numerous dimensions of the international student sojourn, including on- and off-campus relationships. On-campus relationships were believed to involve power differentials as indicated by the following:
I have had incidences brought to my attention where a lecturer has taken advantage of a student, making sexually inappropriate comments or trying to barter for a higher level of grades if they do sexual favors for them. (International Student Leader, Australia)
Another interview participant reported the following:
We had the [university] lecturer that was accepting sexual favors for good marks. The person actually committed suicide, the lecturer. . . . Yes [it involved] international students . . . couple of years ago . . . but it didn’t make a big splash in the headlines. (International Student Services Manager, Australia)
It was understood that the lecturer committed suicide “when it all just came to the surface . . . because the student eventually . . . came forward.” It was believed that “some of them [male lecturers] have seen the [female] international students as being quite vulnerable and they’ve taken advantage of them.” The interview participant indicated that she was aware of several cases “where an [international] student was having sex with one of the lecturers . . . [and it] was related to marks.” Reportedly, in one U.S. case, the lecturer “almost tried to control them and just say ‘don’t you talk to anyone; you come to me if you need help’” (Counselor, US). Supporting the findings of investigations into similar incidents (Corruption and Crime Commission, 2010), it was perceived that international students were particularly vulnerable:
They’re desperate for their marks and to get through . . . probably, they just don’t know any better, I suppose, because it depends what countries you’re coming from and how these things are seen in those countries. . . . In some countries, it might be acceptable. (International Student Support Manager, Australia)
The evident inequalities—being female, different cultural mores, living away from family support, and under pressure to succeed—mean female international students are vulnerable to gender-based violence by male faculty (Dziech & Weiner, 1990). These situations tended to flourish in the academic setting, which was fluid with changing boundaries and blurred lines of authority. The confidentiality associated with university reports relating to gender-based violence against female international students suggests that “[h]igher education takes great care to maintain its image as a verdant island removed from the corruptions of the outside world” (Dziech & Weiner, 1990, p. 53). The image, however, is impossible to maintain. The intersecting inequalities relating to female international students mean vulnerability to gender-based violence is high. The perceptions of our interviewees indicate that various forms of gender-based violence are rife both on- and off-campus.
A female taxi driver in Queensland, Australia, shared her experiences of providing transport to female international students living on a university campus that she believed were engaging in either transactional sex or sex work. She commented,
I regularly drop them off at hotels . . . or on a corner . . . sometimes there is a man waiting . . . you’d have to imagine “this one is Brad Pitt and this one is whoever” . . . sometimes I pick them up again a short time later . . . I think it is $150 for half an hour. (Female Taxi Driver, Australia)
Categorizing the students into two different groups, she suggested that some were trading sex “to support themselves” and others sought status through “having the most expensive handbag and clothes.” The former group seemed to be regarded with empathy; however, there was little understanding that the desired statuses of the second group “highlights the influence that Western trends, peer pressure, modern technologies and conspicuous consumption have in motivating young women’s sexual behaviours” (Mitchell, 2011, p. 7). This case appeared to blur the distinction between sex work and transactional sex, but nonetheless it highlighted the vulnerabilities of the young women involved. To support her information, the taxi driver provided a copy of a Brisbane newspaper displaying advertisements for “Outcalls,” which she claimed were female international students looking for clients. The advertisements included details relating to race, culture, age, and other personal attributes. It appeared that these attributes were being used by the students as a commodity to improve their lives, but how they were being used was contributing to the students’ vulnerability.
The vulnerability of the students was also exploited by unscrupulous people advertising jobs and accommodation on public websites. Many advertisements on the Internet appeared to blatantly target international students for jobs and accommodation involving transactional sex. For example,
. . . there’s a website called Gumtree Sydney and a lot of the jobs and places to live that are targeted for international students on there are pretty interesting . . . some of the places to live will say that it’s free. So you don’t pay over any rent, but what you have to do is keep the house clean, and provide a wife service for the person who lives there. . . . If the students are walking in there with open eyes saying, “I am willing to pay my rent with sexual favors” then I would think that’s their right. . . . But this is quite hidden and quite dishonest, and I’m concerned for their safety in that situation. . . . They [the victim and the perpetrator] do tend to be the same culture. (Student Rights Officer, Australia)
The practice of transactional sex involving international students in accommodation settings often provided by same-culture individuals supports earlier findings (Forbes-Mewett, 2008, 2013; Forbes-Mewett & Nyland, 2008). However, the fact that interviewees repeatedly claimed in most cases students were at risk from those in their own cultural group does not suggest an absence of cultural differences between victim and perpetrator. It does suggest, however, that the perpetrators were taking advantage of the students’ trust based on cultural sameness and at the same time exploiting the possibility students may accept behavior on the presumption of cultural difference from a host country perspective. This example supports the view that race and ethnicity are not “static and immutable entities” and that elements of social location such as gender, class, culture, and immigrant status need to be acknowledged (Krane, Oxman-Martinez, & Ducey, 2000, p. 2). The interviewee asserted, “to me that’s clearly criminal behavior. . . . They [the students] wouldn’t know about the sexual harassment laws at work and the subtleties that go on with that as well.”
There was also evidence of transactional sex in homestay
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situations, which was believed to be associated with students’ desire for permanent residency in the host country. One interview participant commented,
I’ve dealt with issues where students willingly got themselves involved with homestay fathers in exchange for homestay fee. . . . [T]here is the international student who may come into homestay with a view to having an affair with perhaps the son or the visiting cousin or uncle who may be nearer their own age. I have known divorce to happen where the student has ended up living [with] and then marrying the husband. (Homestay Worker, Australia)
The above example reflected the vulnerability of international students who lived in homestay arrangements, particularly where the carer roles of the hosts had become blurred with intimate relationships. The view that some students may have had in place a plan to form a personal relationship in Australia may have been related to the students’ desire to live permanently in Australia (Robertson, 2011; Tran, 2011).
The issue of transactional sex in the above examples reflected numerous inequalities, including gender, racial and cultural differences, poor socioeconomic circumstances, and being an international student living away from family support networks and the pressure to succeed academically. These multiple identities intersected in various ways that together contributed to particular tendencies and vulnerabilities associated with international students in a variety of settings.
Sexual Harassment: “We See the Tip of the Iceberg”
Female international students were perceived to be vulnerable to sexual harassment in their places of learning, work, and accommodation. The examples in this section come from the Australian interviews, where the issue of sexual harassment seemed more prominent. According to a homestay worker, the group most vulnerable to sexual harassment was “female students in homestay.” It was believed that homestay accommodation, where an international student lived with a family, provided opportunities for sexual harassment. However, a workplace lawyer indicated that sexual harassment of female international students in the workplace was also a problem: “If you are a criminal lawyer, if you know what goes on, the majority does not get reported.” As a consequence, low levels of reporting wrongly imply low incidence of sexual harassment (Dziech & Weiner, 1990). Bedont and Martinez (1999) asserted that “the inferior treatment of gender crimes perpetuated their underinvestigation and underprosecution” (n.p.). The harassment and exploitation of international students in the workplace and other settings have previously been explored (Marginson et al., 2010), but not through a gender lens. As a consequence, the sexual harassment of female international students has been neglected and as indicated in the following excerpt, “all is not well”:
. . . she is a very naïve, lovely looking [Peruvian] girl. So she finds that she gets employed in a job. Most of them get cleaning and factory work and all the menial jobs– then the sexual harassment from their supervisors as well. So then they leave that and they haven’t got a job. . . . She has moved [from] quite a few jobs because of the men sexually exploiting [her] as well . . . they [international students] have no family support system here . . . there would be so many girls in her position . . . (Lawyer, Australia)
Without family support systems and knowledge of workplace rights, female international students were further disadvantaged beyond the usual inequalities–gender, race, and class—considered in intersectionality analysis. This point is underlined in the following example, which shows how cultural differences can make female international students vulnerable to gender-based violence in the workplace:
[W]e had some students from mainland China . . . they worked for free for this accountant, and because [he] was giving them invaluable experience they thought it was okay that he wasn’t paying them. And the other thing that he was doing was showering while he was training them, and then he would call them into his bathroom and say, “Oh can you just put this cream on my back?” and he’d walk around the workplace, which was like the home office, with just a towel on. . . . They came in here and talked to us about it, and said, “Oh we’re not really comfortable with that. If we don’t do this will we lose our job?” (International Student Rights Officer, Australian University)
Behavior, such as described above, demonstrates the employer’s exploitation of cultural difference and the students’ recent relocation to the host country. The students experienced uncomfortable feelings that led them to question whether or not the actions of the accountant were customary in Australia. Taking this step was thought to be unusual “for the quieter sort of Asian women” (Student Rights Officer, Australia).
[L]ots of Asian students we have don’t want to make a fuss. They don’t want to complain . . . getting into trouble with the cops is getting in trouble with the government and . . . your whole family’s in trouble in the more oppressive parts of Asia. Those students often will not want to report anything, or they don’t clearly understand that something is not acceptable here either. They . . . don’t want to make someone out to be bad. . . . So they’re not willing to go with their gut feeling and say: “That just feels wrong to me. I’m not going to go there again.” It’s like you have to respect your elders, and, “That person was older than me so I should just take my medicine” sort of thing. (Student Rights Officer, Australia)
Another interviewee commented,
I actually think that sexual crimes are grossly underreported even in our domestic population and I think that due to the language barrier and cultural adjustment they’re probably even more underreported than [that among] international students. I suspect that sexual assault happens so much more frequently with international students than domestic students. And then you’re dealing with issues of shame-based responses that are cultural in nature, it’s hard enough in the local culture but imagine you’ve come from country X, you went out, you thought you were making friends and then all this happened. So I think they tend to really underreport even more so than Americans here. (International Student Services, US)
While acknowledging the underreporting of sexual crimes across the entire student population, the above interviewee identifies a number of influences that exacerbate the problem for international students. Specifically, language and cultural differences, and issues of shame, as noted in previous studies (Marginson et al., 2010; Sable et al., 2006).
The study participants associated the vulnerability of the female international students to their culture, the need to protect families in the home country, and a lack of understanding of what is and is not acceptable in the host country. Often the students’ employment or housing arrangements were associated with their vulnerability to gender-based violence.
Intimate Partner Violence: “Where Are You Now?”
Our interviewees frequently associated gender-based violence with personal relationships. The interviewees suggested that there were many instances of intimate partner violence against female international students. For example, “it can happen both ways but at least here in the States, it’s much more of men controlling women” (Sexual Assault Counselor, US).
We’ve seen people try to burn houses down, rather than lose a partner. They get pretty obsessed and pretty distraught and will do things that are really out of their regular consciousness. (Sexual Assault Counselor, US)
An Australian interviewee shared her experience in helping a young female international student:
[She] had a knife held to her throat by her boyfriend’s brother. She was pregnant to her boyfriend and wanted to terminate the pregnancy and the relationship but she was being threatened with her life. (Student Support Worker, Australia)
The interviewee indicated that the student was being supported and counseled by university staff who believed that many more cases existed as initial calls for help were often not followed through by the victim.
The problem of stalking was frequently associated with intimate partner violence in both Australia and the United States:
There is a lot of stalking. Many times all three [sexual assault, stalking and dating violence] come together . . . there may be a dating relationship that involves some sexual violence or some physical violence and so the victim breaks up and then the stalking behavior that follows, to try to gain the person back. (Sexual Assault Counselor, US) It starts almost always as just verbal intimidation and emotional words and behavior such as many, many texts—maybe, a, “Where are you now? Aren’t you supposed to be here now, it’s 5 o’clock? I need to have you here” that kind of thing—the controlling behavior through text and phone and personal conversations. And what that often does is lower the person’s self-value, self-esteem and they feel like they need to be in this relationship for some reason and that the person is probably doing all of these behaviors because they really, really like them. So they keep trying to . . . meet the demands of their partner, not really recognizing that it’s far beyond the boundaries of a healthy relationship. Then if it progresses, usually it gets into some pushing, shoving, slapping . . . and may indeed involve forced sex as well. So I see it all. (Sexual Assault Counselor, US) . . . they [the female students] don’t recognize it as something that’s way past what a good relationship is supposed to be like. . . . [I]t’s very controlling, manipulative and I think requesting things. Even simple requests like pick up my laundry, go buy some food for me, those kinds of things which don’t sound terrible but when they’re in the context of a lot of other things happening at the same time, it’s just a way to control a person so that the person who’s doing the controlling, feels very in charge and wants it that way. . . . [A]nybody who engages in that kind of behavior hasn’t felt really good about himself before . . . it’s just part of their character and it’s going to be hard for anybody to change that. (Sexual Assault Counselor, US) If the relationship ends, that’s often when the stalking begins because, it’s, “Oh, you think you’re so good that you don’t need me” or they think, “Well, you do need me and I need you and you will be with me, not matter what.” (Sexual Assault Counselor, US)
The problem of stalking was considered by the interviewees to be “a fairly frequent thing with international students” (Student Support Worker, Australia). At times it was associated with cultural practices, as presented in the following example relating to a male international student perpetrator:
He stalks girls and he went to Court for it. . . . He nearly went to jail. . . . You might be able to do something in your home country, but you can’t do it here . . . he got himself into trouble because he had a restraining order and he wasn’t allowed on campus. So we had to try to put other processes in place to see whether he could continue to study and so forth. . . . He’s had to change his name because his father didn’t want him to have his name anymore. So he came in and he said to me “now that I’ve changed my name, does that mean I can get a new enrollment and no one will know what I did.” He’s still here. He’s appealing. (Student Support Services Manager, Australia)
Stalking was thought of as “one of those things that a lot of students don’t even see as a crime and they don’t know who to go to for help” (University Counselor, Australia). It was generally believed that most stalking cases involved males pursuing females (Public Safety Officer, US).
Supporting previous work relating to international student safety and security (Forbes-Mewett, 2008, 2013), it was also widely held that international students were most vulnerable to offenses committed by members of their own communities.
I am finding that a lot of the worst perpetrators are their own communities or people who exploit that community. So they may have been international students and then they got permanent residency. (International Student Support Worker, Australia) I have got three [cases] where I’m doing divorces and they are all based on family violence. . . . And some come and they don’t want to cause trouble, like, they’ll come and ask for advice but they won’t go any further. So they won’t take intervention orders out, they won’t even contemplate a divorce. Because there is the other thing in one of the ones that I did, the divorce—and these ones are from India—it’s a stigma to be divorced. So if she ever went back to India and they know that she is divorced, she is ostracized from the community. . . . And not only that, whatever dowry is paid to her father, they would have to pay it back. (Legal Representative, Australia)
The influence of cultural expectations emerged strongly throughout the interviews and usually in conjunction with international student status.
Intersecting Inequalities: “International Students are in a League of Their Own”
Contributing to the intersecting inequalities in the lives of many international students is the high incidence of nonreporting of gender-based violence. The problem of nonreporting in the case of female international students was associated with relationship power imbalances, visa concerns, and fear of forced return to the student’s home country. Despite multiple vulnerabilities in the host country, the international students reportedly clung to the opportunity for upward social mobility not possible in their home country.
[A] lot of these people are coming over to try to get a better life. Like this girl from Peru, she said to me, “Only the rich can go to university [in Peru].” So if you’re not rich, you can’t go to university there. So your opportunities are absolutely limited in what you can do if you want to improve your standing in life, it’s just not going to happen . . . in a lot of the other countries. . . . India, all of those countries. (Lawyer, Australia)
Often students left poor backgrounds in search of a better life only to find themselves continuing to be disadvantaged by inequalities associated with gender, race, and class. Furthermore, they were confronted with the simultaneous vulnerabilities associated with being an international student, such as being away from family support and family pressure to succeed.
International students are in a league of their own, they really are because you’ve got all the different factors . . . your local students, they’ve got family support, they are here, they are in the system, they know the education. It’s not the same. They can get youth allowance, they can get concession cards. They’ve got a lot more . . . they are not exposed to all the underhanded things that go on. They are not going to go into more vulnerable housing and employment positions, as international students do. (Student Support Officer, Australia)
Consistent with extant research, international students were believed to be alienated from many rights and benefits afforded local students (Forbes-Mewett, 2008; Marginson et al., 2010; Robertson, 2011). They were also thought to be disadvantaged because police “don’t seem to understand the issues relating to international students.” It was believed that police required greater awareness of the issues confronting international students to understand the levels and forms of gender-based violence relating to this group. This perspective did not apply in the United States where police were based on campus and had much greater experience in dealing with students from diverse backgrounds.
The vulnerabilities experienced by female international students came from both outside and within their cultural group and, according to the following interview excerpt, were often associated with shame:
The difference of course is the way that communities deal with shame. So, “I got raped because of what I was wearing. It’s my fault. I can’t tell my family because they’ll hate me,” that sort of thing. And whether that’s an international student of a particular culture, or a local student from a particular culture, doesn’t really make a difference. I’ve also experienced attitudes from guys from particular cultures that say, “Aussie girls dress like whores. They’re asking for it,” same sort of thing. . . . Boyfriends controlling girlfriends because who else is here to cook for them and clean for them, and that sort of thing. “I don’t like the way you look at someone else, blah, blah, blah” that sort of control, whether or not it involves violence. Yeah. We see it a lot . . . [gender-based violence] . . . [But], I think we see the tip of the iceberg. (Student Rights Officer, Australia)
The point is made by the above interview participant that issues of shame were related to the background of some students regardless of international or local status. However, what was not recognized at this point was that international students are away from traditional family supports, which added further complexity to their vulnerability.
They might also not believe us when we say that the authorities will help. That the police won’t think you’ve committed a crime, that sort of thing. It’s just the shame, “It’s all my fault, and I brought it on myself. Don’t get him in trouble. I don’t want him to be deported,” that sort of thing. And, “My parents spent a lot of money and trouble getting me here. I can’t make anything go wrong while I’m here.” (Lawyer, Australia)
Gender Violence Education and Support Services
It was believed by many research participants that international students could be educated to reduce the chance they would fall victim to gender-based violence. This view was most strongly expressed by female participants in the United States where the provision of “gender violence education” and support programs for students was most evident. Zippel’s (2006) claim that the United States is at the forefront of such issues appeared to hold true, even at the micro level of the current study. In Australia, individual cases of gender-based violence tended to be managed through general counseling services and, if necessary, in conjunction with support from security personnel. In Australia, despite a view that international students were particularly vulnerable because of a lack of family and social networks, and a lack of knowledge of support services, support services for gender-based violence appeared to be ad hoc.
Not just no network, but no knowledge of what’s available here. So they wouldn’t know that they could come to us and we could hook them up with emergency housing, or put them in a refuge or whatever. There might also be restrictions on what they can access, services that they can access. There might be services that are for Australian Permanent Residents or citizens only. So I can’t think of any at the moment, but I know that one of the housing places that we have is just for Australian students. (Student Rights Officer)
On the contrary, students in the United States were believed to be educated about gender violence, which according to one educator included
. . . mainly issues of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, sexual harassment and then we also do support services for those on our campus who have been a victim of violence. We offer support services, which can include listening, helping them report to our campus safety division or our local police, escorting them to hospitals, medical services. The services that we provide are [readily] available, but we only do what the students or the victims want us to do. . . . We currently have about 600 international students . . . certainly [they] are part of our clients.
It was widely thought that different cultural norms would hinder students’ ability to identify behaviors of others that may develop into situations of risk and that the students may not be aware of support services in times of need:
. . . for those international students who are really not understanding the sexual norms here in the United States, certainly they may not pick up on advancements or techniques perpetrators may use to trick a victim into whether it be alcohol consumption or putting drugs into a drink. . . . (Gender Violence Educator, US)
The influence of drugs and alcohol in the U.S. college experience has been well documented, as has the relationship between drugs and alcohol and sexual assault on college campuses (Bogle, 2008). In the current study, the problem of harassment and sexual assault was frequently acknowledged as were issues of alcohol consumption and drug taking, but to a lesser extent. Our interviewees only mentioned these problems in association on a few occasions. That is, there were few mentions of drugs and alcohol directly in relation to sexual assault. One notable exception was from a U.S. interviewee who asserted that “the increased abuse of drugs and alcohol [by perpetrators and victims] contribute to the overwhelming majority of rape, sexual assault, assault, [and] harassment . . . on campus” (Gender Violence Educator, US). The issue of female international students consuming drugs and alcohol was rarely mentioned by the Australian interviewees. An exception follows:
Rarely, I would say. Particularly if some females have come in and they’ve said that they have been raped but it’s not so much in a relationship, it’s a once off thing that had happened at a party or something under the influence of alcohol or drugs, etc. Not so much the coming in when they’re in a relationship and they’re continually being abused.
When asked, “Do you find that the international students do or do not get involved in drinking and drug taking?” the interviewee responded:
No. Not in my experience, no. It’s unlikely . . . I mean, I guess it depends on the culture sometimes. As I said, the Asian—no, definitely not. Hong Kong and Singapore, China, Vietnam—all of those, or whatever. When I say that, no. They are usually not the ones to be partaking in . . . anything like that but, as I said, we’ve got so many different countries here, even the U.S., etc. So I would say, yeah, in general, not so much. In my experience, I’ve only ever seen local girls or domestic students who have had that happen to them, to be honest. I haven’t actually seen any international students—well, they haven’t reported them to me. (Student Services Manager, Australia)
The issue of nonreporting was frequently raised, which highlighted the difficulty in assessing the extent of the problem. It also suggests that the common problem of nonreporting that is associated with violence against women is exacerbated when groups are marginalized not only by gender but also by color, class, and cultural aspects. These dimensions are further exacerbated when the person is an international student with another set of vulnerabilities, including unfamiliarity with systems and services. One interviewee explained,
[E]ven though I purposefully go to orientations for international students, [they] may not understand the services available or how to navigate the system once they become a victim. . . . Becoming a victim and I think also being a perpetrator not realizing where the lines and boundaries are drawn here in the United States. Certainly we have some cultures that believe “no” can mean “yes” or it’s ok to abuse a woman because really she is lesser than a man so it’s ok to punch her or beat her. (Gender Violence Educator, US)
Australia did not seem to have the gender violence-focused education programs within education institutions that exist in the United States. However, support programs were in place for victims. In Australia, it appeared as if the onus was on the student to seek help if at risk or the victim of gender-based crime, and once this was done, support would be available. A student rights officer (Australia) advised students who felt vulnerable in certain circumstances to follow their instincts: “[W]e try to tell them to go with their gut feeling . . .”
Existing support services in Australia tended to be outside education institutions and included centers specifically designed to deal with sexual assault and other broader legal support organizations. An international student representative remarked on experience in assisting with some cases where the victim has sought help from Legal Aid, a government funded legal center in Australia:
I’ve actually seen this personally because I did some work with Legal Aid, and we had quite a few international students that were coming in, usually it was international student on international student crime. They were dating, domestic violence issues. So it does happen. It’s very underreported and it’s, when it actually reaches the point where it hits the Magistrates Court, it doesn’t actually get translated . . . demographically [into] “this is an international student,” it’s just a student, or a person in this age group has been beat up by their spouse, or their roommate. It does happen.
In the United States, the process of providing gendered crime prevention education began early in the international student sojourn, as it was believed that becoming accustomed to local norms would help students identify risk.
The most common crimes are related to harassment or sexual assault, most of which could be prevented through social norming when students arrive on campus. (Student Services Coordinator, US)
Taking a preventive approach was hoped to reduce the vulnerability that can accompany cultural difference such as observed by a U.S. interviewee: “On our campus, young Asian women are cultured to be more meek and passive and appear to more frequently be the subject of crime reports” (Gender Violence Educator, US).
The interviewees’ comments underline the need for institutions to provide specific gendered crime and violence education and support programs so that seeking help for difficult and personal issues becomes acceptable as part of their expectation to remain safe in the host country.
Conclusion
We adopted intersectionality as a framework to explore multiple identities that form a whole and interact in experiences of international students’ vulnerability to crime in Australia and the United States. It is argued in this article that inequalities associated with being an international student compound the usually analyzed intersecting inequalities of gender, race, and class. Factors that contribute to the vulnerability of international students include living in a foreign environment, often without host country language and cultural skills, distanced from the support of family and friends in the home country, and sometimes with insufficient financial resources. These factors render female international students particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence. Relocation to a host country that is foreign in many ways presents challenges that threaten the safety of international students and cultural backgrounds may hinder the reporting of gender-based violence.
Our study indicates that female international students used transactional sex as an economic survival practice as well as a consequence of the influence of Western trends such as conspicuous consumption. The related discussion suggests that the boundaries are blurred between transactional sex and sex work. Although the settings in this study contrast greatly with developing countries where transactional sex is associated with poor women, the principle remains of women finding ways to survive economically. The circumstances reveal that international students’ race, gender, and personal attributes are being used as commodities to exchange for economic benefit, thus rendering the students vulnerable to gender-based violence. International students’ vulnerability to gender-based violence was apparent in a variety of settings, including accommodation, the workplace, and educational institutions. In some instances, international students were perceived as unaware of what constituted an offense and there were numerous examples where students were reported to have believed stalking and sexual assault were not an offense. Most commonly, the perpetrators were reported to be members of the students’ national group, often a partner. Other times perpetrators were reported to be employers or accommodation providers, again often, but not always, from the same national group. Cultural association between the victim and the perpetrator was reported less often in the academic setting, where power imbalances through faculty status underpinned circumstances with potentially dire consequences for both the student and the faculty member.
There was a strong sense among interviewees that international students do not wish to report incidents of gender-based violence for fear of repercussions, including deportation, the shame of not living up to family expectations, and fear for their own safety and that of family members. Apart from not understanding that help was available, the students are also thought to be concerned about known perpetrators being punished and deported.
For those who did report, it was generally thought in Australia that police were not sufficiently trained to understand the issues relating to international students. This did not appear to be the perception in the United States, where police were based on campus and gender violence education and support programs seem much more accessible. Shedding light on the topic of international student gender-based violence, which tends to be hidden from public scrutiny, we argue that in addition to the intersecting inequalities of gender, race, and class, that being an international student compounds and contributes to the students’ propensity to be vulnerable to violence. In the context of the increasing reliance of education institutions on international student fees and the importance of protecting females from gender-based violence, we suggest that Australia has much to learn from the U.S. model of providing gender-based violence education and support.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project was funded by the Australian Research Council DP 1095202.