Navigating Domestic Violence Protection Law By Immigrant Wives in Taiwan

This paper seeks to explore the question: why do abused Vietnamese immigrant wives married to Taiwanese men find it difficult to escape from violence even though the Domestic Violence Prevention Law has been in place for more than 15 years and the government claims a supportive system has been established? By applying the institutional ethnography approach (Smith 2005) we contend that, even though there are laws, institutions (police, hospital, social workers, courts etc), and professional people that constitute a support system for abused immigrant wives, the structural forces of class, ethnicity and gender discrimination intersectionally influence them as they seek to find a way out of the abuse they face.