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Chinese victims of abuse afraid to seek legal help

"The animosity toward Chinese immigrants is still extremely prevalent in southern Taiwan. Many Taiwanese husbands treat their Chinese wives as no more than dispensable baby-making machines and human punching bags."

Wang Chuan-ping, human rights activist

Heavy discrimination against Chinese spouses has deterred some victims of domestic abuse from seeking help, women's rights activists said yesterday, in a bid to call attention to a murder trial starting today involving a Chinese spouse who stabbed her abusive Taiwanese husband last year.

"The animosity toward Chinese immigrants is still extremely prevalent in southern Taiwan. Many Taiwanese husbands treat their Chinese wives as no more than dispensable baby-making machines and human punching bags," said Wang Chuan-ping (王娟萍), president of a non-profit organization dedicated to issues involving cross-strait marriages.

In addition to the discrimination they face, Wang said many Chinese women married to abusive Taiwanese men hesitate to report the abuse because they are afraid their spouses will retaliate.

Victims are often ignorant of their rights as well, as they are kept as virtual prisoners in their homes, said Sandy Yeh (葉毓蘭), president of the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation.

Yeh said that Chinese spouses make up 66 percent of the 400,000 foreign spouses in Taiwan.

Yeh's group is trying to rally support for Chinese national Zhao Yanbing (趙岩冰), 53, who goes on trial this afternoon for stabbing her Taiwanese husband to death. Zhao reportedly endured years of physical and sexual abuse before killing her husband.

In July, the Taipei District Court convicted Zhao of murder, but reduced her sentence to 18 months when the judges ruled that she had acted out of "legitimate self-defense."

Unsatisfied with the ruling, prosecutors appealed to the Taipei High Court, demanding Zhao be given a harsher sentence.

Prosecutors claimed Zhao was not as "helpless and ignorant" as she made herself out to be because she had applied for restraining orders against her husband on two different occasions.

Zhao's applications for the restraining orders demonstrates that she understood her legal rights and was free to leave the relationship, the prosecutors said.

"This is a ridiculous claim," said Chen Yi-chien (陳宜倩), assistant professor at the Graduate Institute for Gender Studies at Shih Hsin University, adding that it is regrettable the legal system still discriminates against women even after 12 years of judicial reform.
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