First Draft
Chandana Guntupalli
Rutgers University Newark
A young South Asian woman, Anjali (pseudonym) had married her husband in India and moved to the United States shortly after. She had been experiencing domestic violence from her husband from the inception of the marriage. She has been subjected to physical, emotional and immigration abuse, particularly with the sexual abuse being a significant component of the abuse. Upon reaching out to a non-profit organization for help, she was being sexual assaulted almost daily by her husband. The story of Anjali is one of many South Asian women who are experiencing domestic violence, with the sexual assaults being unspoken, nonetheless a significant component of the abuse.
This narrative will address three explanations identifying intimate partner sexual violence in the South Asian community. South Asia
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As mentioned earlier in this piece, a South Asian woman’s sexual pleasure is not included in the discourse of sexuality, but rather her role as a reproductive being, regardless of consent. With husbands able to have full sexual access and control over their wives, they also dictate reproductive outcomes such as when to have children and how many children to have. Some ways in which the husbands enforce their control over their wives’ reproductive rights include forced abortions, forcible impregnation, and forcible use of contraceptives. Some of the women in the ethnographies conducted faced physical violence from their husbands while pregnant, particularly if the pregnancy was not wanted. Although there is a societal pressure that women are expected to be married, stay married and have children, there is also the pressure that a woman may face if her husband (and his family) is