Violence against women is a serious health and social problem for women worldwide. Researchers have investigated the broad physical and mental health consequences of violence against women but few have focused on immigrant and refugee women. We assessed the history of violence and the impairment of physical and mental health among 60 women participants from the Iranian and Sri Lankan Tamil communities in Toronto, Canada. Our survey findings revealed that the participants had experienced various types of violence throughout their lifespan, with psychological abuse by a spouse/partner occurring most frequently in the past 12 months. Commonly reported types of abuse included insulting, criticizing, and intimidation by partner (psychological abuse); slapping, hitting, and shoving (physical abuse); and forced sexual intercourse and sexually degrading acts (sexual abuse) by a partner/spouse. We found that a substantial proportion of the participants also had experienced physical and mental health impairment, which could be a result of the various types of violence they had experienced throughout their lifespan. Research and practice implications are provided. 1. Introduction Violence against women is a global phenomenon and involves a spectrum of physical, sexual, and psychological acts of control, threat, aggression, abuse, and assault. Violence against women takes many forms, such as female infanticide, (girl) child abuse, incest, rape, sexual harassment, intimate partner violence (IPV), and abuse and neglect of older women. Although health science researchers are increasingly focusing on violence against women at local, national, and international levels, few have investigated violence against women across the lifespan (i.e., violence experienced prior to, during, and after migration) in various immigrant communities. Given the increase in international migration over the past few decades, there is a greater need to examine the experiences and effects of violence among immigrant and refugee women. To date, no published studies have focused on the experiences of violence throughout the lifespan and the physical and mental health consequences among immigrant and refugee women in Canada, even though more than 250,000 immigrants and refugees come to Canada annually, with a significant proportion arriving from the Middle East and Asia [1]. This paper presents the findings of a pilot study that examined women’s experience of violence throughout the lifespan and the presence of physical and mental health symptoms in a sample of Iranian and Sri Lankan Tamil
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