This is a man's problem" : Strategies for working with South Asian male perpetrators of intimate partner violence

It involves extended families often connected across two continents and embedded in community and religious values that foster a belief in the social structures of patriarchy, the sanctity of marriage, the stigma of divorce and the importance 2 “This is a man’s problem” of reputation and honour. [...] The Centre for the Prevention and Reduction of Violence and the Core Reference Group supported not only the research itself, but the formation of a Reference Group whose members from both the community and the JIBC had particular experience in the topic. [...] At the same time, several participants noted that South Asian men suffer the costs of gender role expectations, with high expectations that they be the family provider and the head of the household. [...] A probation officer observed that it may be women who turn the attention from the man perpetrating the violence to the woman who is the victim of the violence: I hear women talking about it. [...] I often say, ‘You have to have some privilege to experience lack of it’.” The difficulty with much of the work in this field and within immigrant communities, the participant argues, is that the researchers wait for community members to raise issues of racism using sociological language and, if that doesn’t happen, they conclude that racism isn’t an issue: “I think that we need to look at it a lit