On October 10, Freedom Inc.'s Kabzuag Vaj will receive the Justice Award, a Governor's Council on Domestic Abuse 2007 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Domestic Abuse Issues. A Hmong woman who has gotten a lot of criticisms from her own community for speaking out against domestic violence faced by Hmong women in abusive relationhips, Vaj deserves our utmost respect and admiration. I watched her educate Hmong women, especially the last batch of refugees from Thailand camps, about women's rights in the U.S. and recent cases of murder-suicides in the Hmong community in Wisconsin. The women initially cited other women's sad stories in the camps; it would be much much later before a few would confide their own sad stories to Vaj. The common request of these women was: "Please don't tell my husband I confided this to you. He might kill me."
In the last two years, there have been three murder-suicides in Marathon County's Hmong community as a result of domestic violence. The most recent one involved Pa Houa Thao of Weston who was killed Aug. 28 by her husband, Chor Thao. News reports said the couple was getting a divorce and that this case was a "crime of passion."
A Hmong friend once told me that a Hmong man would rather die than lose face in his community, a loss of status that results from role reversal in most cases. In fact, a Ford Foundation study in 2002 blamed the Hmong killings on "the changed economic status of some Hmong women and the violent backlash by men who feel they have 'lost control' of their women. It further said that "Men use suicide killings as a weapon to keep their wives in line by ... threatening: 'If you don't behave, the whole family will die.'"
Many advocates dealing with domestic violence throughout the U.S. agree that in the Hmong community, spousal violence is an ongoing, rampant issue that people just don't want to talk about.
Vaj has long decided to talk about it. "How can anyone change anything if nobody wants to confront the issue head on?" she asks.
She wants to empower women and men by educating them about their rights and obligations as Americans and as family and community members, while keeping the best parts of their culture intact. Vaj wants continuing community discussions on domestic violence that would include both men and women in the Hmong community. She wants all voices heard and appeals to all to open their minds and their hearts and be ready to face the truth and change for the better.
The Hmong community and the state of Wisconsin have a gem in Kabzuag Vaj. We can learn a lot from her strength of character and determination to stop domestic violence that scares Hmong women to death.
We should support Vaj in her efforts. |
