Invisible no more: Latinas organize against gender-based violence in Europe
- Written by Journalists from Bien Acompañadas, Red LATAM Europa:Laura Valentina Cortés Sierra, Goldy Levy, Alondra Aguilar, Camila Albuja, Laura Seco, Lucrecia Cisneros Rincón, Julio Melgarejo and Sebastián Rodriguez
- Edited by Ankita Anand
- Illustration by Gabriela Rodriguez Soledad
Most violence against women happens in the home. Women who are undocumented, whose migration status is insecure, or who face language barriers, are particularly vulnerable. But across Europe, Latin American women are coming together in myriad networks of mutual support, to face down isolation, exploitation and inadequate public services.
Read the full investigation in Spanish here.
Verónica Caicedo Lozada had recently moved to the UK from Colombia when she met a man on a dating app. She was working as an au pair. He was a psychology student. He seemed romantic and charming at first, but as they got closer he became controlling. Comments about her appearance were followed by prohibitions on her daily life. He forbade her from going to the gym – and from dancing, which had been a lifelong passion for Verónica. The abuse escalated until he physically attacked her.
On the advice of a Spanish-speaking social worker, Verónica eventually reported her abuser. Yet even though she had the legal right to stay in the UK, her access to basic protection was questioned. She only gained entry to a women’s shelter after a lawyer intervened with a formal letter asserting her rights. Even then, she feared that reporting the abuse could ultimately lead to her deportation.
The UK signed and ratified the Istanbul Convention on combatting violence against women and domestic violence but opted out of a clause to protect migrant women. This means that when victims file a report to police in the UK, “their personal data can be shared with the Home Office for immigration enforcement, including deportation,” according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The commission has also shown that threats of immigration enforcement are used by domestic abuse perpetrators “as a form of coercive control.”
It was while she was staying at a women’s shelter that Verónica danced again for the first time. But with non-resident people wandering in and drugs being consumed on the premises, she didn’t feel safe. Relocated to unfurnished emergency housing in a village, she felt isolated and exposed. So she moved to Bristol – and joined a salsa group, where she met a woman who added her to the Latinas in Bristol WhatsApp group, which has over 300 members.
Latinas in Bristol is dedicated to empowering Latin American “through networking, informative sessions, engaging activities, workshops, and providing valuable community resources.” For Verónica, it has been part of a path to healing through creativity and community.
The 2011 Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the Istanbul Convention, is the first international treaty to define gender as a “socially constructed category.” It recognizes the structural nature of violence against women as a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between women and men – and establishes the link between gender equality and eradicating violence against women.
The Convention’s goal is a legal and policy framework to tackle violence against women and domestic violence through four key pillars, or called the “four Ps”: preventing violence against women, protecting victims of violence, prosecuting perpetrators of violence, and implementing integrated policies to address the issue comprehensively.
To achieve these objectives, the Convention sets minimum standards for governments they must implement. These include prevention measures such as raising awareness and collecting data. Signatory states must promote education on gender equality, sexuality, and healthy relationships and provide support services for survivors, including adequate shelters, rape crisis centers and free 24/7 helplines, as well as psychological counseling and medical care. The Convention also mandates criminalization of several forms of abuse against women in national legislation, including psychological violence, stalking, physical violence, sexual violence (including rape), forced marriage, female genital mutilation, forced abortion, forced sterilisation and sexual harassment.
An updated list of country who have signed the convention can be found here: https://www.coe.int/en/web/istanbul-convention/country-monitoring-work
Information compiled by Marlene Keller
Latinas support Latinas
Every Tuesday, a Latinas in Bristol hosts a group hosts an art and crafts group. Sometimes five women turn up, other days they are 20. Between sketches, they share victories in learning English or scoring job interviews and discuss entrepreneurial ideas. “It’s a place for care, support and having each other’s back,” says Laila Garzón, the Argentinian founder of the initiative. Some members – once they have become comfortable in the group – open up about experiences of abuse.
Verónica’s abuser was ultimately convicted. However, the drawn-out process, which was delayed twice, still haunts her. A repeat offender who had previously served time for violence against other women, her abuser is now free. But speaking her native language has been reaffirming and “feeling all those emotions and talking about them, and trying to do things you like, painting, dancing, or singing,” has been essential to process what she went through.
Latinas in Bristol is one of over 130 networks our investigation identified that support Latinas in five European countries: Germany, France, Belgium, Spain and the UK.
While still trapped in an abusive relationship, Verónica felt utterly alone. Now, she’s acutely aware of how many Latinas in England go through similar experiences. “Believe me, domestic violence is more common than we think,” she says. For her, moving on has meant empowering other Latin women to identify and report violence. “Being isolated or staying at home doesn’t help. It drags you down a little more. Now I’m part of a community,” she says.
Latinas in Bristol is one of over 130 networks our investigation identified that support Latinas in five European countries: Germany, France, Belgium, Spain and the UK. Across Europe, initiatives of mutual support for Latina migrants exposed to violence number in their thousands – though many will be invisible to anyone who isn’t a part of them.
In Germany, the Latin American community rallies to support a survivor of sexual violence in court. In the UK, Latina girls are taught about healthy relationships at school. In Spain, Latina migrants join forces to map out safe spaces in the city. In Belgium, a singer shares her experience of being fetishized as a Latina in a popular magazine. In France, women bond over their migration stories at a salsa gathering.
These are spaces of support and solidarity, where women have each other’s back. They exchange tips on how to learn a new language or how to deal with homesickness, how to find a doctor who speaks Spanish – or how to escape an abusive marriage or fight for custody of your children.
Breaking the silence
“We embrace both pain and happiness. If it's ugly, we share it and make it lighter. If it's beautiful, we know it will recharge us all.”
It’s Saturday morning and a group of women are gathered in a circle drinking from steaming mug of coffee. Their conversation delves into abuse and pain. When one woman talks, the rest of the group are keenly attentive, often nodding in recognition. There are tears, but also laughter. And there is talk of a kind of silence that only those who have lived through intense isolation and insecurity can understand. Here, with the supportive presence of a qualified psychologist, that silence is broken.
Most of the “Té Amigas” – tea friends – group are from Latin America. They meet regularly at the Center for the Empowerment of Domestic and Care Workers (CETHYC) in Madrid, which offers psychological, legal and labor rights training. “We embrace both pain and happiness. If it’s ugly, we share it and make it lighter. If it’s beautiful, we know it will recharge us all,” says Edith Espínola, CETHYC’s director of Active Domestic Service.
Edith was a domestic worker for eight years. That wasn’t her plan, but when she arrived from Paraguay, she found that her university degree wasn’t recognized in Spain. For the first four years, her earnings were below minimum wage. She recalls long hours and employers who took advantage of her irregular migration status. Now, she works to support women going through the same.
CETHYC provides these women with a safe space to connect, put their traumatic experiences into words, and come together to protest, publicly asserting the importance of their work – which is as important as it is invisible – on the streets. As migrants, many of these women have no support network, no contract, no colleagues and barely know the city. “There are colleagues who arrive at the center on Saturday mornings and wait at the door until we open. For some, this is like their private room: they come to sit, read and spend a few hours in silence,” Edith says.
One in four female domestic workers in Spain experiences sexual harassment, disrespect or discriminatory or threatening treatment on the job, according to a survey by the University of A Coruña and the Platform for Home and Care Employment with Full Rights. Working – and sometimes living – in employers’ homes can expose any domestic worker to the risk of abuse. But for workers who are also migrants, the risks can be particularly acute.
“Some of our colleagues lock themselves in their rooms at night because their employer harasses them,” Edith says. “But they endure it because they are close to getting their papers and he has promised to help them,” Edith explains.
‘If these organizations didn't exist, I wouldn't have left that house’
Nadia* moved from Peru to Berlin with her German husband, whom she had met online. What began as a seemingly stable relationship descended into verbal aggression and humiliation. He treated her with alternating indifference and threats – to deny her food or take her child from her. Terrified of being separated from her son, Nadia didn’t dare leave.
One day, she told one of the few friends she had in Berlin, who was also from Peru, what she was going through. “She was the one who told me, ‘You are facing psychological violence.’ That was the first time I heard the term. I knew about physical violence, but not psychological,” Nadia recalls.
Her friend gave her the number for a helpline that advised her to go to a women’s shelter. From there, she was linked to a women’s counseling service that offers legal and psychological support in Spanish. She also reached out to Xochicuicatl, a non-profit dedicated to mentoring and empowering Ibero-American women, which organizes workshops, book clubs, or events. They often partner with other associations aimed at aiding migrant women, like MaMis en Movimiento, a community of Spanish-speaking women in Berlin that assists migrant mothers and offers workshops for their children. “If these organizations didn’t exist, I wouldn’t have left that house,” Nadia says.
Eventually Nadia reported the abuse she had suffered to the police – but only after the psychological violence escalated into physical violence. She was advised that unless she had visible signs of the abuse – and had those injuries evaluated by a medical professional – police would do nothing.
Cases like Nadia’s suggest that institutional support can work, but the burden of proof in order to start legal action against abusers is often discouraging. Complicated procedures for filing complaints or receiving help – challenging for any woman fleeing domestic violence – mean women who face language barriers, or struggle to understand local bureaucratic culture, are effectively shut off from the support they are entitled to.
Trapped by bureaucracy and fear
For some, informal communities where women share their experiences and guide each other through what can seem like impenetrable systems, can be the only way to access support or protection provided by public services. For others, these networks remain essential for healing even once state assistance has been provided and the legalities are over.
Often, such communities aren’t part of formal initiatives at all. Living in Brussels, Mariana* didn’t know how to escape the sexual and psychological violence her partner inflicted on her – until she visited a Latina-run hair salon. There, she found a community of women who spoke her language, who she could relate to, and who gave her a feeling of warmth she had missed since leaving Venezuela. They helped her find a job, a new place to live, and legal support to fight for custody of her daughter.
Yet Mariana’s current irregular migration status and economic situation mean she still lives a life of precarity. She now faces a daunting custody battle, in which her status as an undocumented immigrant, as well as outsider to the Belgian legal system, may count against her. Her lawyer has said that without a formal complaint of violence, or legal residency, her case is “complicated.”
In Belgium, migrant women who do not have a residence permit or are in the process of regularization, receive no specific protections when they report domestic or gender-based violence. Their only legal avenue is to apply for a humanitarian residence permit, which entails paying a €385 fee, providing proof of a fixed address – not a shelter – and submitting thorough documentation of violent abuse. Even then, there are no guarantees against detention or deportation during the review process.
Legally invisible
According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, at least one in five women in the EU has experienced physical and/or sexual violence in the domestic sphere – usually perpetrated by a current or former partner. This is often referred to as “domestic violence” or “domestic abuse,” terms that focus on the location or relationship context of the violence, rather than its root causes. In contrast, the term “gender-based violence” highlights the structural inequality and power imbalances that make women and girls particularly vulnerable to such abuse.
The absence of a unified legal definition of gender-based violence across Europe contributes to this conflation. By merging the terms, the gendered nature of the violence, and the fact that women are disproportionately affected, is obscured. This makes it harder to track the true scale of gender-based violence and to design effective protections. For migrant women, this invisibility can mean fewer resources, legal gaps, and less recognition of their experiences.
“This isn’t my country. I had no family, no safety net – just my visa, my job, and my fear.”
Mar* arrived in France from Mexico as an au pair and later pursued a master’s degree. While a student, she began a relationship that quickly became controlling and emotionally abusive. Her partner’s behavior escalated from psychological manipulation to physical violence, gradually isolating her and derailing her studies.
The abuse intensified over time, culminating in a terrifying incident. “He locked me inside, took my passport and phone, and told me I couldn’t leave.” After hours of holding her against her will, he finally released her. She left with nothing but her bag and laptop, walking to work in a daze, leaving behind both her belongings and a traumatic chapter of her life. “He knew he could do it because I didn’t know how things worked here,” she says. “This isn’t my country. I had no family, no safety net – just my visa, my job, and my fear.”
With few friends, no documents and no support network Mar felt helpless. Like Nadia, she found that coming to the police about the abuse she suffered was useless without a medical certificate. She says the French authorities dismissed her report and the NGOs and women’s organizations she approached didn’t help either.
Mar’s experience reflects a system that far too often fails migrant women: bureaucratic hurdles, lack of clear guidance, failure to take women’s experiences seriously, and legal systems that force women to choose between abuse and deportation. “Many things are missing: information, real help, associations that don’t judge you, someone who will listen without saying, ‘Why didn’t you leave sooner?’ Many don’t report out of fear. Because they don’t know what to do and because they feel alone. And they shouldn’t be,” Mar says.
Like most of the women we spoke to for this investigation, Mar wants to see institutions do far more to protect women. Until that happens, it will be those who are themselves at risk of violence, abuse, exploitation and deportation who provide a safety net. But they don’t only extend networks to fill gaps in public provision. They also create spaces of survival, solidarity and power where women help each other resist narratives that normalize violence and blame victims, that fetishize them, or induce guilt.
*Some names have been changed to protect the identity and safety of the women.
This article is part of an ongoing investigation by a group of independent Latin American journalists living in Europe funded by the Collaborative and Investigative Journalism Initiative by Free Press Unlimited.
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