Barriers and Facilitators of Help-seeking Behaviours of British South Asian Women who experienced Domestic Violence

Abstract

Background: Domestic violence (DV) is a global public health issue. DV affects one in four women during their lifetimes in the UK (Osborne et al., 2012). Although the UK government has undertaken several initiatives to prevent DV against women, a number of issues still remain within UK policy, such as limited attention towards ethnic minority groups (e.g. South Asians) who often face a number of barriers and limited facilitators for help-seeking behaviours among those who have experienced DV. Aim: Identify the barriers and facilitators for help-seeking behaviours for British South Asian (BSA) women who have experienced DV. Methods: A narrative review has been written to introduce the key concepts underpinning this PhD research project, and to offer a critique of the background literature. A systematic review, using meta-ethnography, synthesises existing qualitative evidence about the barriers and facilitators for help-seeking behaviours among South Asian women who live in high-income countries, in order to understand existing work on the broader population of this PhD’s study participants, before focusing on the targeted country (UK). A cross-sectional qualitative research design was applied to identify the barriers and facilitators for help-seeking behaviours among British South Asian women who have experienced DV. This included individual, in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 DV survivors, who were born and brought up in the UK, or have indefinite leave to remain in the UK, with lived experience of DV, along with 18 DV service providers from any ethnicity based in the UK. The ethical approval and recruitment were conducted between March 2020 and February 2021, which was delayed for the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis and a hybrid process of deductive and inductive theoretical thematic analysis. Findings: Firstly, this PhD thesis has highlighted the broader population (South Asian women) from which the participants in these studies (BSA) are drawn, in order to understand the present work about the barriers and limited facilitators for help-seeking behaviours among South Asian women through the systematic review and the narrative review. After that, two empirical qualitative research studies conducted with BSA women are reported, with both studies identifying several barriers and facilitators such as: stereotypical thinking and misuse of religious beliefs, sociocultural norms to prohibit help-seeking behaviours, survivors’ lack of recognition and realisation of abuse, fear of negative consequences, emotional disturbance as a barrier, insufficient support from statutory and voluntary agencies, informal support, safety strategies and facilitators for surviving. Overall, the findings indicate that barriers often outweigh facilitators for help-seeking behaviours. The intersectionality of the unique South Asian cultural diversity (gender, patriarchy, religion, ethnicity, racism) is identified in all empirical studies within this PhD thesis as a key influence on the development of the barriers and facilitators. Conclusion: The findings of this PhD research have implications for the staff of government and non-government organisations, patients, victims, and survivors of domestic violence in understanding the barriers and facilitators for adequate support and services. There is a need to utilise the lens of intersectionality, considering South Asian women’s unique cultural diversity (gender, patriarchy, religion, ethnicity, racism) to help researchers, policymakers and service providers understand the lived contextual experiences of BSA women. Moreover, these PhD findings show the importance of informal support for BSA women as all of the participants’ pathways to formal assistance were through informal support. It also came out through the findings that it is necessary to define the needs of BSA women who are experiencing DV while considering their ethnicity, culture, gender, an

Date of Award	1 Aug 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Peter Taylor (Supervisor), Nusrat Husain (Supervisor), Filippo Varese (Supervisor) & Omolade Allen (Supervisor)