Editorial: Ads could protect immigrant women

Friday, Aug. 22, 2003 | 9:44 a.m.

From people who work in social agencies, health-care clinics, shelters and legal-services offices, we are hearing about the plight of undocumented immigrant women who are victims of domestic violence. Many of the women are afraid to report the beatings and psychological torture because they believe once they appear before authorities, they will be confined and eventually sent back to their native countries without ever seeing their children again.

Federal laws, however, protect undocumented women from deportation or other strictures based solely on their reporting of crimes against them. Unfortunately, language barriers and the general lack of disseminated information about these laws keep many women from ever finding out about them.

Sun reporter Timothy Pratt recently wrote about one such victim of domestic violence, who now has hope for a much brighter future after finding the number of a domestic violence hotline -- in a public restroom. There should be a much more reliable method of getting the word out. We believe Clark County should help inform immigrant women of the laws protecting them from such treatment. It could do this by helping fund the printing and distribution of brochures, and helping fund a continuous advertising campaign using foreign-language newspapers and radio and TV stations.

Clark County earlier this month awarded a $106,000 contract to a consultant so that she could determine whether the public was getting enough information about endangered plants and desert tortoises. We feel there should be at least that much advertising money available to ensure that immigrant women are getting enough information to protect themselves against the dangers of domestic violence.