BMC Public Health. 2015; 15: 1283.
Published online 2015 Dec 23. doi: 10.1186/s12889-015-2634-0
PMCID: PMC4690281
Abstract
Background
One
in three women around the world are or have been subjected to violence.
This includes in Australia, where violence against women is an urgent
public health and human rights issue. Immigrant and refugee women who
have resettled in Australia are known to face barriers accessing
services aimed at preventing and responding to family violence. However
there is little evidence about the contexts, nature and dynamics of
violence against immigrant and refugee women to inform appropriate
responses to enhance their safety and well-being. The ASPIRE project
will address this gap by identifying opportunities for the development
of responsive local and community-based interventions for family
violence against immigrant and refugee women, contributing to the
currently limited Australian research in this area.
Methods/Design
This
participatory research project will work with communities in eight
geographic locations (two inner-city, three outer-suburban, and three
regional) across two states (Victoria and Tasmania), to generate
evidence about immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in a range of
settings. The project will engage stakeholders and communities through
extensive consultation prior to data collection and by facilitating
community members’ participation in generating and analysing data. A mix
of qualitative methods will be used to generate rich data about the
family, cultural and place-based contexts that shape the prevalence and
dynamics of violence against immigrant and refugee women; women’s
prevention and help-seeking efforts; and community attitudes about and
responses to violence across a range of cultural groups. Methods include
in-depth interviews with women who have experienced family violence,
key informant interviews with local community service providers, focus
group discussions with men and women from predominant cultural groups
that have migrated to areas covered by the research sites, and
Photovoice with community leaders. Bilingual health educators will
contribute to development of the research approach, the collection and
analysis of data, and the dissemination of findings.
Discussion
Findings
from this two-year study will be disseminated to communities, service
providers and policy-makers, providing evidence to inform
culturally-appropriate prevention and support interventions, and
building local communities’ awareness and capacity to respond to
violence against immigrant and refugee women.
Keywords: Family
violence, Immigrant, Refugee, Community-based research, Participatory
research, Qualitative methods, Intersectionality, Australia
Background
Violence
against women is a public health, human rights and social policy
problem that occurs in all communities and cultures. The prevalence of
violence against immigrant and refugee women in Australia is unknown,
with non-English speaking women under-represented in available
quantitative data sets such as the Australian Personal Safety Survey.
Surveys also underestimate violence against women with culturally and
linguistically diverse backgrounds because of women’s varied perceptions
of what constitutes violence, reluctance to discuss sensitive issues
with unknown interviewers, and non-reporting of sexual violence in
particular [1–3].
However it is known that a large proportion of people who have
resettled in Australia since the 1980s have come from the three WHO
regions with the highest lifetime prevalence of intimate partner
violence and/or non-partner sexual violence – Africa, South and
South-East Asia, and the Eastern Mediterranean [4, 5].
While
prevalence data is incomplete, there is no evidence at this time that
women who have resettled in Australia as immigrants or refugees
experience higher rates of family violence than other Australian women.
However the experiences associated with migration and resettlement are
thought to increase the complexity of family dynamics and complicate the
provision of effective support [6–8].
Available evidence suggests women who have resettled in Australia face
barriers to services following family violence, including language
barriers, logistical barriers, limited awareness of legal rights and of
services, fear of police or that families will be broken up, social
isolation, and shame [8–11]. Locally available services may be inadequately responsive to immigrant and refugee women’s needs [12, 13].
Literature
on the dynamics of violence against immigrant and refugee women in
Australia is limited. Research has highlighted how changing gender norms
post-resettlement may increase women’s vulnerability to violence [7, 8, 14, 15].
Relationships between particular cultural values, violence-supportive
attitudes, and violence against women have been analysed in some
individual cultural communities [8, 9, 16].
Other factors shaping immigrant and refugee women’s experiences of
violence, help-seeking, and access to services are less understood. In
particular, little attention has been paid to the role of place – that
is, to examining differences and similarities in the experiences of
women who have resettled in Australian inner-city, outer-metropolitan,
or regional settings; the local resources available to them; and the
capacities of local communities to respond to violence.
Research
elsewhere has highlighted the violence-protective effects of supportive
neighbourhoods, and that local circumstances of socioeconomic
disadvantage can potentially amplify risks of violence for women [17, 18]. Community members’ perceptions about their neighbourhood are known to impact upon women’s help-seeking behaviour [19],
as does actual availability of responsive local services. However
little evidence is available on Australian contexts. This project aims
to address this gap by developing an in-depth understanding of the
intersection of women’s migration experiences, place of resettlement,
and experiences of violence and help-seeking in different settings.
Findings will describe opportunities for supporting community-led
responses to violence, informing violence prevention and support
interventions and policy.
