Even if violence against women is not exclusive of certain social and cultural groups, statistical studies in countries with a large immigration tradition mark a higher prevalence of this kind of violence in certain ethnic minorities (Cromwell & Burguess, 1996; Gondolf, 2002, 2005; Straus, Gelles & Steinmetz, 1981) and in certain immigrant groups (Dutton, Orloff & Hass, 2000; Raj & Silverman, 2002; Song, 1996). This overexposure of immigrant women to gender violence has also been compared in our context, in a dynamic that seems to be intensifying rather than reducing itself. In 2009, more than twenty interviews with immigrant women victims of gender violence and professionals were carried out in order to identify the factors that turn immigrant women into women especially vulnerable to male chauvinism, and how the social, sanitary, legal and police resources work in their interventions with this group. From the results of the research it was identified that the economic situation of immigrant women, especially of those whose economic status depends on their husband and of those who are in an irregular situation, the precariousness of their social network and their difficulties in socio-labor integration, housing field and access to basic social benefits seem to be factors that impede these women to get out of the violence circle. Despite the progress of the enforcement of the Integral Law and the subsequent law development in the Basque Country, the protection of the fundamental rights of immigrant victims is still unequal to the one of national women, specifically in those factors that hamper the way of this group to social and health assistance, protection and justice.

Gender violence Immigrant woman Social protection Vulnerability

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