Epsiode 12 - Domestic Abuse and Toxic Masculinity

Mandeep Kaur, Sania Khan, Noor Mukaddam, Garima Kothari - are women who were victims of intimate partner violence. The hidden cancer of the South Asian community. About 60% of South Asian women report having experienced some for of domestic abuse in their lives. We here at Auraten believe the numbers to be closer to 75-90% due to the nature of problem, the cloak of secrecy and shame attached to reporting these incidents. 

Mandeep, a 30 yo woman, has left behind multiple videos detailing the abuse her husband, Ranjodhbeer Sandhu, subjected her to for eight years - in the most distressing video of them all he is beating her while you can hear her 4yo daughter crying asking him to stop. She committed suicide two days ago. 

Sania Khan was a 29 yo Pakistani American woman who married a man after dating him for 6 years. She left them less than a year later for trying to jump out of a 20 story building holding her. She filed for divorce and moved from GA to Chicago. She had wanted to go back to  her family in Tennessee but they told her they’d kill themselves if she came back. On July 18, 2022 Her ex husband, Raheel Ahmed, traveled from GA to Chicago and killed her w a single shot to the back of the head. She was documenting her divorce journey on TikTok. 

Noor Mukaddam was a 27yo Pakistani victim of murder who was kidnapped, tortured for 2 days, raped and then decapitated with a knife. Her killer, Zahir Jaffer, who confessed to the police that he had intended to kill her if she didn’t accept his marriage proposal. 

Garima Kothari was a 35 yo woman who was 5 months pregnant when she was found dead in her apartment with trauma to her upper body. Her death was ruled a homicide. Her husband, Man Mohan Mal, was found dead in the Hudson River in Jersey City soon after. His death was ruled a suicide. There are no other details available. 

In an article in the Inquiries Journal author Humza Hussain asks the question Why Are South Asian Immigrant Women Vulnerable to Domestic Violence? In it he discusses South Asian culture and how it places a strong value on collectivism with an emphasis on a strong family unit. This discourages and often punishes individualism and expects the sacrifices necessary to make this work to come from its women. After all women aren’t supposed to be liberated anyway. But more interestingly, Hussain talks about an integral component to the South Asian diaspora - the model minority myth. He states, South Asians in the United States are often believed to be a “model minority,” as they are commonly thought of as a “successful, hard-working, family-oriented community in an attempt at upward group mobility,” The model minority image is problematic as it not only deters public attention from internal issues like domestic violence, but also encourages members to conform to their expected gender roles and to maintain their public image. This includes internally motivating domestic violence victims to keep their violence hidden- a common trend in South Asian culture.

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