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Case highlights immigrant abuse

“All my dreams have been torn apart, and my life is ruined,” Zhao Yanbing (趙岩冰), a Chinese woman who killed her Taiwanese husband after suffering years of domestic violence, said through tears on Wednesday.

She was telling her story to a Taipei news conference hosted by several rights groups to highlight the problems of domestic violence that immigrant spouses face.

Zhao had just retired from a management position at a scientific institution in China when she married Chia Hsin-min (賈新民) — whom she met in China — in 2003.

Chia had told Zhao that he was a businessman investing in China, when in reality he was a poor army veteran.

“I was in shock the first night when we arrived in our new home in Taipei — it was a tiny room without even a bed,” Zhao said.

But the worse was yet to come. Zhao was physically beaten and verbally abused on a regular basis.

Finally, in February 2006, Zhao had had enough.

“I was very sick at the time, but Chia didn’t allow me to see a doctor,” Zhao said. “He locked me up in the house and didn’t allow me to eat anything for four days.”

When Chia again threatened to kill her, Zhao hit him with a hammer, knocking him unconscious and then killing him.

Taipei District Court Judge Lin Meng-huang (林孟皇) ruled that Zhao’s actions were self-defense and only sentenced her to 18 months in prison, said Cynthia Kao (高小晴), executive director of the Women’s Rescue Foundation.

“In the second trial yesterday [Tuesday], the Taiwan High Court judge upheld the verdict, saying that Zhao was affected by domestic violence trauma syndrome and that her actions could be considered to have been committed in self-defense,” Kao said.

While lauding the decision as an important step for family violence victim protection, Kao said immigrant spouses need more protection.

“As Zhao came to Taiwan because she was married, now that her husband is dead, she has lost her immigration status and will likely be deported,” Kao said.

A bigger problem is that the Nationality Act (國籍法) requires all those seeking Republic of China citizenship — including immigrant spouses — to renounce their original citizenship before beginning the application process.

“That means that if your Taiwanese spouse dies or you are divorced, you may lose your citizenship applicant status when you have already given up your home country’s citizenship,” said Yang Tsung-li (楊宗澧), a Judicial Reform Foundation representative.

“A lot of immigrant spouses choose to tolerate domestic violence for fear of losing their immigrant status,” Yang said.

“But if they can’t take it anymore, there will be more cases such as Zhao’s,” Yang said.

Sara Friedman, a gender studies professor at the University of Indiana, said that similar scenarios have occurred in the US, but US immigration authorities have come up with a solution.

“For the first two years of their marriage, immigrant spouses are on conditional green cards — meaning that their green card status comes from their marriage,” Friedman told the news conference.

However, since a large number of domestic violence cases have occurred during the time when the immigrant spouses are on “conditional green cards,” US authorities decided that once a domestic violence case is proven, then “the foreign immigrant spouses who are victims may apply for permanent residency on their own,” Friedman said.
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