expat

MJ

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I am an American and Italian dual citizen and have lived my adult life as a “trailing spouse” – a wife who has supported my husband’s career internationally while not being awarded work or study visas of my own. Typically, I’ve held “spouse” or “visitor” visas. This situation has made me financially and legally (immigration wise, at risk of deportation upon separation or divorce) dependent. We have three children. He is abusive in every sense of the word – emotionally, sexually, financially (I have no idea what earnings or savings he holds), and physically, culminating in an incident in 2021 in which he drank 3/4 a bottle of whiskey and woke me from a dead sleep choking me to the point of a whiplash and vertebrae injury. I saw a doctor two days later and carefully reported the incident but could not file a police report, as then his employment, our family of five’s only source of income whilst I lacked work permissions, was at risk. Even in explaining the precariousness of my situation, I was asked to return two hours later for “exam and x-ray results”… wherein I was ambushed by the police. I was then referred to a social service agent who asked, first question “What is your plan to for financial independence or to return to your home country?” Despite holding a US Bachelors and years of unpaid NPO experience, I was told in the absence of local language fluency no one could assist me with employment. And I had no one to return “home” to and three children I’d be leaving behind, due to the Hague Convention (I would require my abuser’s permission to have them leave their country of domicile). I couldn’t stay, I couldn’t go. And to add insult to injury… again and again… I was phoned by KESB and informed that should the children witness further abuse, I would lose custody as at this juncture I was complicit as I did not leave the relationship. I am still in this position to this day. I have been married 23 years and am in a foreign country with three children. I’ve made contact with countless attorneys, women’s aid groups, embassies, and advocates, literally all of them are optics and all of them unable to assist. And the remote work option that seemed so promising during the pandemic has all but disappeared. I’m here, financially dependent, abused, and in a system that does not recognise unpaid caregivers. We are simply prisoners.

Cheyanne

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I’m an american living in China. I have been cat called in America and found it very upsetting in the past. Here in China however, I get attention constantly just for being white. There are not a lot of foreigners where I am and I get pointed at by little children, women, and men alike. This doesn’t bother me so much because I understand I’m very strange looking to them and probably a brand new experience. But the thing that does bother me is the Chinese men who follow me down the street yelling “pretty lady” in Mandarin and sometimes taking pictures of my body. If I was in America I feel like I could tell them off, report them, or take their pictures or something but here there is the issue of cultural sensitivity. I don’t want to get in trouble, I don’t want to be the “ugly American tourist”, and I don’t know enough Chinese to really say that much anyway. When I go out with my husband this never happens, but alone I feel like a piece of white meat.