BANGLADESHI WOMEN, ISOLATED IN NEW YORK CITY, NEED MORE SUPPORT, ADVOCATES SAY

[The Bangladeshi population — with significant concentrations in the Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Jamaica neighborhoods of Queens — has been one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups in the city over the past few decades. It now numbers about 76,000, up from about 2,000 in 1980, making it the ninth largest foreign-born group in the city, according to the latest census data.]

By Kirk Semple

A 3-week-old baby ended up dead in the courtyard of an apartment building in Queens. The police arrested the mother, Rashida Chowdhury, a 21-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant, on charges of second-degree murder. They said she confessed to throwing the baby out the bathroom window of her fourth-floor apartment because she thought the child was possessed by an evil spirit.

Beyond those stark facts, little is publicly known about the case or what led to the baby’s death early in the morning on Aug. 7. Still, the episode has resonated deeply among social service providers and advocates who have been trying to address mental health problems, particularly among women, in the growing Bangladeshi population in New York City.

Depression is widespread, these advocates and service providers say, often born of cultural and geographic isolation worsened by economic hardship and financial dependence on spouses.

“The women are becoming victims of everything,” said Rokeya Akhter, a Bangladeshi immigrant who leads the New American Women’s Forum of New York, a group that seeks to empower Bangladeshi immigrant women. “The women come to this country with an American dream in their minds and the situation sometimes is totally different. Women are going through so much frustration and they become depressed.”

The Bangladeshi population — with significant concentrations in the Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Jamaica neighborhoods of Queens — has been one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups in the city over the past few decades. It now numbers about 76,000, up from about 2,000 in 1980, making it the ninth largest foreign-born group in the city, according to the latest census data.

It is also among the poorest, with poverty and overcrowding rates that are among the highest compared with those of the city’s other large immigrant groups.

Many new Bangladeshi immigrants — and even some who have been here for many years — speak little or no English, further worsening the challenges of integration, advocates and community leaders say.

Arranged marriages are also common, with brides either sent to join their husbands in the United States or traveling with their spouses from Bangladesh.

“A lot of the women are older and come with husbands,” said Alison Karasz, executive director of Sapna NYC, a group based in the Bronx that is focused on the social, economic and health-related needs of South Asian women. “But sometimes young girls come and don’t know their husbands.”

Even when the United States is new territory for both spouses, however, they may operate under different sets of rules once they arrive. While the men leave the home to work and circulate among the broader society, many women, because of cultural mores or child-care obligations, have to stay home, further depriving them of the ability to cultivate a support network.

Afreen Alam, executive director of Chhaya Community Development Corporation, a Queens group focused on housing and economic development in the South Asian population, says some women are prohibited by their husbands from having a job and lack their own financial control.

According to census data, Bangladeshi immigrant women have one of the lowest rates of labor force participation among the major immigrant groups in the city. Without their own source of income, advocates say, women are further isolated — an aspect of what Ms. Alam calls “the economics of gender disparity.”

“Men, they come to this country, they’re going out, they’re working, they’re socializing with other people,” Ms. Akhter said. “But the women, they don’t. They are here like a prisoner.”

Reshmi Sengupta, programs director for Sakhi for South Asian Women, a Manhattan group that works with victims of domestic violence, said the isolation can be so enduring, some women “may not know how to travel the subways even though they’ve been in this country for 20 years.”

According to the authorities and neighbors, Ms. Chowdhury had been living for at least several months with her 40-year-old husband, Mohamad Ahmad, in an apartment building in the Richmond Hill neighborhood. The couple and their baby, Rizwan Ahmad, apparently shared a two-bedroom apartment with Mr. Ahmad’s brother and sister as well as her sister’s two young children.

It remained unclear, however, how Mr. Ahmad and Ms. Chowdhury met and married or how long they have been living in the United States. Phone messages left for Ms. Chowdhury’s lawyer, Steven Goldenberg, were not answered, and the family did not respond to messages left at their address.

The emergence of social service organizations to help Bangladeshi immigrants, particularly women, has lagged behind the population’s meteoric growth. One of the most glaring shortfalls, advocates say, is in the availability of mental health services provided by practitioners fluent in Bengali and Bangladeshi culture.

“I get requests on a regular basis for counseling for family members from professionals who speak the language,” Ms. Alam said. But, she added, she has been “hard pressed” to find appropriate therapists.

At the same time, many Bangladeshis are unaware of the range of social services that are available to them, including those provided by governmental agencies.

“It’s a very new community; they’re still learning the different ins and outs,” said Dilip Nath, a Bangladeshi immigrant and president of New American Voters Association, which encourages immigrant participation in the political process. “If there’s a mental issue, I hope they can reach out. But they don’t know of the services available.”

In the absence of many community groups beyond the mosques attended by the immigrants, social service and advocacy groups often rely on word of mouth to reach prospective clients. Doctors’ offices, hospitals and — in the case of some domestic abuse victims — the police are also sources of referrals.

But advocates and service providers say that no matter how robust their efforts to reach the most isolated and vulnerable members of the community, they still feel they are a long way from meeting the demand.

@ The New York Times