A Janus-Faced State—Uncertain Futures and Frontline Workers’ Support for Immigrant Women Experiencing Abuse

Abstract

Utilising interviews with immigrant women and frontline workers, this article discusses the role of the state in relation to immigrant women’s divorces. The article argues that the state has a Janus face when it comes to such women’s “intimate belonging”. On the one hand, state legislation both legally enables female-initiated divorce and supports divorced mothers economically. Accordingly, frontline workers generally back immigrant women who seek to leave troubled marriages. On the other hand, different parts of Danish legislation may place divorcing women at risk of losing their residency rights—a risk which has increased in recent years. Furthermore, while divorce may improve a woman’s life situation if she remains in Denmark, it may jeopardise her life if she returns to her country of origin. What constitutes “good help” for women who are facing the vital conjuncture of potentially divorcing their husbands is, thus, entangled with the increasingly unpredictable issue of where such women’s futures will come to unfold. This unpredictability challenges how social work should be carried out—a conundrum which Danish frontline workers seemingly have not fully realised. Presently, the situation means that such workers in reality may endanger the lives of the women whom they seek to support.