Monica Lo, shown on Jan. 26, 2024, has spent the last six years as an advocate and program coordinator at The Women’s Community, Inc., a nonprofit based in Wausau, Wis. She helps survivors of domestic violence who face challenges similar to those she faced in a previous relationship. (Kara Counard for Wisconsin Watch)

A women-led movement is pushing back against patriarchal attitudes and offering support to survivors of domestic violence.

By Zhen Wang
Wisconsin Watch

Monica Lo stayed silent for years as the man she married abused her. She said he punched and even choked her — leaving her bruised and paralyzed by anxiety, even when she was six months pregnant in 1994.

Lo said she didn’t report the violence to law enforcement and lied to doctors about her injuries, saying at one point that a softball struck her.

She was taught to obey men and be submissive. She also feared speaking out would bring shame to her family.

“I didn’t want anybody to know what’s going on with me and my family,” Lo said in a recent interview.

The abuse escalated into a death threat along a highway in 1998, prompting Lo to wonder if she would survive or become yet another casualty of domestic violence.

Lo would ultimately escape the abuse and get back on her feet with help from The Women’s Community, Inc., a Wausau-based nonprofit that serves domestic violence and trafficking survivors. Her life would come full circle years later. She would go on to earn a master’s degree in social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before returning to Wausau to help Hmong women through challenges like she faced.

Lo, who has spent the last six years as an advocate and program coordinator for The Women’s Community, is among Hmong women who have spent years pushing back against attitudes that prevent women from reporting abuse and leaving violent relationships.

That includes offering safe housing, counseling and more representation in mediation processes that typically precede a divorce sanctioned by Hmong leaders. The women are also speaking out in an ongoing debate about the role patriarchal attitudes play in shaping scenarios that can prove deadly.

Monica Lo speaks with a woman at The Women’s Community, a Wausau-based nonprofit that serves domestic violence and trafficking survivors. (Kara Counard for Wisconsin Watch)

Hmong residents, the largest Asian racial ethnic group in Wisconsin, make up just 1% of Wisconsin’s population but have mourned a litany of killings linked to domestic abuse, particularly in and around Wausau, home to the highest per capita Hmong population in the United States. In an unofficial tally from news coverage and advocacy group reports, Wisconsin Watch counted 20 Wisconsin homicide cases since 1990 in which Hmong men have killed their intimate partners and, in some cases, additional women. Those include 14 cases since 2005. 

More recent victims include Mai Rue “Lily” Vang of Wausau, described by loved ones as a generous friend, loving mother and deep listener. Even with her parents’ support, she struggled to leave a partner who abused her for years before killing her in March 2021.

Some Hmong men say blame for such violence should focus on individuals. They bristle when advocates say old cultural attitudes play a role. Those suggestions, some Hmong men say, stigmatize and divide Hmong communities that have remained tight-knit in Wisconsin since a generation arrived from refugee camps in Thailand after the Vietnam War. 

To be sure, domestic violence is a national and statewide scourge that criminal justice and legal systems have struggled to address. Ninety-six people of various backgrounds in Wisconsin died due to domestic violence in 2022, according to the advocacy nonprofit End Domestic Abuse — a 20% increase from 2021 and the highest tally since the group began releasing such data in 2000. 

But leaving abusive relationships can prove particularly challenging within traditional Hmong clan and family structures that value interdependence over independence and empower men to make most major decisions, advocates say. Sometimes taught to submit to their husbands and honor their clans, women may be blamed for triggering partner violence. When families negotiate terms of a marriage or separation, cultural divorce can prove particularly messy. 

Cheeia Lo, executive director of the Green Bay-based domestic violence program Golden House, said that reporting abusers can have consequences in immigrant or refugee communities, where men are the main breadwinners.

“It takes individuals up to seven attempts to leave their abusers,” Lo said. “And the number is a lot higher in the Hmong community. I would say almost double that.”

Silence makes quantifying domestic violence difficult

How pervasive is domestic violence against Hmong women? That’s hard to measure, said Pa Thao, executive director of Black and Brown Womyn Power Coalition in Eau Claire. That’s because Hmong women often stay silent, as Monica Lo initially did, to avoid inflicting shame on themselves and their families. 

Domestic violence survivors, regardless of ethnicity, often avoid speaking to law enforcement. Just 52% of domestic violence victims who responded to the 2019 National Crime Victimization Survey said they reported the violence to police.