Venturing into the hyphen space between "victim-survivor" with rehoused abused women in Hong Kong: implications for Post-separation Domestic Violence Services

Abstract

Hong Kong’s domestic violence services are organized around the ‘victim’ or ‘survivor’ dichotomy, as defined by the point of separation/divorce. Formal care and services are expected to be rendered to ‘victims’ who are struggling in abusive relationships, and terminate when ‘violence subsides’. Its emphasis on ‘crisis intervention’ and the absence of post-separation services reflect a belief of equalizing ‘separation’ with ‘problem-free’ and ‘autonomous’ lives. In domestic violence literature, the victim-survivor hybrid is increasingly popular as a term to remediate the problematic victim or survivor dichotomy. It is a response to capture the complexity of abused women’s experiences and the diverse ways these experiences are organized. This study engages migrant and local Chinese abused women, who have left the abusive relationships, as equal partners in developing post-separation domestic violence services in Hong Kong. Through reexamining their experiences of migration, living with intimate partner violence and coping in the post-separation lives, women participants reconstructed their victim identity and also explored the double meanings of ‘survivor’ in Chinese, Chungsangje 重生者 and Hangchuenje 倖存者. Unpacking women’s experiences not only challenges the traditional victim or survivor dichotomy, but also ventures into the hyphen space between ‘victim’ and ‘survivor’, giving rise to a new collective identity named as ‘chungsangje-becoming’. This new identity does not only capture women’s aspiration to departing from victimhood, but also their need for support in striving towards survivorhood after separation. Failure to reconstruct the victim/survivor dichotomy is found to forbid women from recognizing their strengths or seeking help when needed. Findings of this study also suggest that abiding construction of identity with formerly abused women is a way to locate their post-separation needs.