Social Services for Battered Immigrant Women in Korea: What do we have and what do we need?

While public awareness on domestic violence has increased over the past few decades in Korea, little is known about domestic violence issues pertaining to immigrant women. This study is an attempt to provide an overview of domestic violence issues, legal and policy structures, and current social service system in place for battered immigrant women in Korea. The findings show that various sound legal and policy framework has been established over the past years, resulting in provisions added to the existing laws on domestic violence, policies developed specifying support for battered immigrant women and implementation of social service agencies to assist and protect the battered immigrant women and their families. Using the AAAQ framework by UN, we examined the current service delivery system. The result shows that service availability, accessibility, and acceptability are found to be quite compromised by gaps between the policy and practice. A large number of service providers are located in metropolitan areas, reducing the accessibility of battered women in other regions. A limited budget is also a barrier to provide comprehensive services to all in need. Lastly, a lack of translator and interpreter services limits accessibility and acceptability as both the service providers and the victims are unable to communicate with language barriers. Based on the findings, we suggested implications for policy and practice.