Patterns of Adaptation: Somali and Bangladeshi Women in Britain

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Abstract
The origin of the paper on which this chapter is based was my observation that a major factor defining my female clients’ mental health was their ability to divorce men with comparative impunity. My material was obtained over three years of working as an immigration and refugee advisor with immigrant communities in Tower Hamlets, East London. Tower Hamlets includes the old port of London dock area, where, traditionally, immigrants arriving by ship disembark and settle. For hundreds of years it has been the first point of settlement for immigrants in London. Immigrants who arrive by air gravitate towards existing communities of their own ethnicity, thus Tower Hamlets continues to receive the bulk of new immigrants from older immigrant communities. Tower Hamlets is one of the poorest and most socially deprived boroughs in London. The two main ethnic groups whom I serve are the Somali and the Bangladeshi communities. It was the difference in the behaviour patterns of the women from the two communities which led me to the above conclusions on divorce. Somali women appeared to have much lower depression rates and be more in control of their lives than men.1

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