Violence Against Women

This article explores the lived experience of young women navigating and surviving domestic and family violence (DFV) and homelessness. Promoting the voices of young women through in-depth interviews, this article considers their story of violence, abuse, homelessness, and sense of safety. Such stories enable reflection on the ability of services to provide personal, material, emotional, and cultural safety in a way that recognizes the intersecting impact of trauma before, during, and after experiences of DFV...

Risky sex behavior is common among online dating users. Understanding the motives behind risky sex behavior might help identify suitable targets for prevention. We developed the Self-regulatory Sex Motives Scale in Online Dating (SSOD) to assess sex motives for casual sex in online dating users. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the SSOD and examined the relationship between sex motives indexed by the SSOD and risky sex behavior. The new scale showed high internal consistency. Exploratory factor analysis suggested a one-factor solution...

This study focused on raped women's perceptions of their encounters with Swedish police, with a specific focus on quality of encounters, trust, questions asked during police interviews, and perceptions of justice. One hundred and six rape victims, 74 of whom had reported to the police, answered a web-based questionnaire. Results show that where officers explained their line of questioning the perceived intrusiveness of the questioning was lower, as was the level of perceived victim-blaming. Higher quality police encounters were associated with higher trust in the legal system and in police work, and with higher levels of received justice...

This study examines how the age of female survivors impacts public perceptions of rape in China. In our online survey experiment, participants consider rape as less serious when the survivor is a middle-aged woman compared to other groups of women (younger, older, or age unknown). Participants also request shorter sentencing when the survivor is a middle-aged woman than a younger woman. In China, moral codes surrounding chastity and respect for elders lead to greater emotional responses toward rape against younger and older survivors than middle-aged survivors...

This article presents findings from a case file review of post-separation parenting cases in England and Wales. It first outlines that jurisdiction's legal framework relevant to these cases, before providing an overview of the findings relating to the profile of the cases and their outcomes. It then describes the types of abuse most frequently encountered in these cases, and examines the attitude of the courts to post-separation abuse by looking at both interim and final court orders. The study finds that key legal provisions governing these cases are not being followed, with little understanding shown for the nature of post-separation abuse...

Economic empowerment (EE) services promote survivors' economic stability and well-being. A target for intervention and prevention, then, is to offer more effective EE services. The study purpose was to develop a clearer picture of what EE services agencies offer, and how prepared staff are to provide these services. We collected data from 154 providers. Survivors most requested, and agencies most frequently provided, housing services. EE services offered did not differ by agency location, staff size, or number of clients...

This study investigates the prevalence and predictors of wife-beating endorsements among never-in-union male and female African youths, aged 15-24 years. Demographic and Health Survey data from 14 Sub-Saharan African countries (female = 55,387; male = 29,128) were analyzed using multiple logistic regression analyses. Approximately 37% of male and 42% of female African youths justified wife-beating, ranging from Mali (female = 71.1%, male = 58.7%) to Malawi (female = 21...

The specialist voluntary sector plays a crucial role in supporting survivors of sexual violence. However, in England, short-term funding underpins the sector's financial stability. This article examines sector leaders' ways of coping, resisting and being affected by funding practices. Using the concept of edgework, we show how funding and commissioning dynamics push individuals to the edge of service sustainability, job satisfaction, and emotional well-being. We examine how these edges are "worked," for example, by circumventing and remolding the edge...

A self-report instrument was created to measure stress, attitudes, and performance of domestic and family violence (DFV) first responders in an Australian state. DFV-related stress negatively impacted officers' attitudes and self-assessed performance. Higher DFV stress was predicted by the frequency and severity of DFV incidents, and the absence of lived experience. Negative attitudes were predicted by a shorter length of service and lower severity, and poorer performance by a longer length of service and lower perceived social support...

The understudied bodily harm women experience after commercial sex (CS) may be partially explained by the prominence of Cartesian mind-body dualism in psychological science. Accordingly, we qualitatively explored the mind-body relationship among 79 female sex trafficking survivors. Survivors reported long-term negative alterations in feelings about the body, sex, and physical touch posttrafficking and these negative outcomes did not differ across women who self-perceived as consenting and women who self-perceived as forced...

#MeToo sought to combat sexual violence but evolved into a polarizing movement in the United States. Using a random sample of 5,153 tweets with #MeToo posted between 2017 and 2019 to explore the language and themes individuals use to polarize conversations around sexual violence, we find that MeToo supporters used rights-and-justice-focused language to advocate for survivors. In contrast, MeToo detractors employed legal and violent language to victimize the alleged perpetrators and villainize victims of sexual violence and their supporters...

This qualitative study examines current IPV service providers' perspectives on service delivery methods that best reach and serve IPV survivors from culturally diverse communities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 service providers, and transcripts were analyzed for themes related to service providers' experiences. Five themes emerged from the data that suggest best practices for reaching and serving survivors from culturally diverse backgrounds, including understanding survivors' backgrounds, promoting trust and inclusivity, building community relationships, providing culturally responsive education on IPV, and supporting current and future staff with training...

Women with disability experience higher rates of family and domestic violence (FDV) compared to the rest of the population. There is limited research into how workers in FDV and disability organizations respond to violence against women with disability. Using a case study vignette of a woman with disability disclosing FDV, this phenomenological study explored how 10 employees across the disability and FDV sectors respond to disclosures of abuse, the barriers that influenced their response, and suggested ways to improve their practices...

This study examines the impact of gender and sexism on police officers' attitudes toward policing intimate partner violence (IPV). Data were collected from 826 Chinese police officers through online questionnaires. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis found that male police officers and those with sexist attitudes believe that handling IPV cases is illegitimate; they tend to perceive that the police are not morally bound to regulate such cases. Meanwhile, policewomen are less likely to consider that IPV interventions are difficult and resource-intensive...

Despite one in three women experiencing abuse by an intimate partner in their lifetime, intimate partner violence (IPV) is under-reported. Globally, IPV routine enquiry is used as part of healthcare response to addressing IPV. This paper presents the views of pregnant women ( n  = 40) and providers ( n  = 30) of IPV routine enquiry as part of antenatal care policy in Ireland. Respondents supported IPV routine enquiry as part of usual antenatal care, and while immediate disclosure was recognized as important, it was not a primary expectation...

Intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV) is a common form of intimate partner violence (IPV). This study aimed to (a) identify a typology of intimate partner sexual victimization among French women victims of IPV on the basis of the frequency of various forms of sexual violence and (b) evaluate whether these profiles differ in several clinical characteristics. A total of 93 women consulting a specialized hospital service were recruited. Cluster analyses suggested four profiles: highly frequent rapes (5.4%), predominant sexual coercion (20...

Economic abuse is a significant gender-based problem in Ghana and sub-Saharan Africa, but few studies explore the consequences of this type of abuse on women's lives and their coping strategies. This study examined the narratives of 16 Ghanaian women in intimate relationships who experienced economic abuse in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, and Upper East regions of Ghana. Results indicate economic abuse negatively affected female survivors' jobs, businesses, and food security and led to physical violence and adverse health implications...

This article provides a case study regarding struggles over framing gender violence as a political issue. It looks at how gender violence initially entered political discourse and state legislation in Turkey. It identifies the main political actors as feminists, Islamists, and Kemalists, and examines their impacts on state policy-making processes and outcomes. It argues that, in the Turkish context, the Islamism-Kemalism divide contoured the limits and possibilities of frame institutionalization in legislation and characterized state responses to gender violence through familial ideology, which prioritized family privacy and unity over women's right to live free from violence...

The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of women with histories of victimization and addiction who were recently admitted to a sober living home (SLH). From the 17 interviews conducted, five themes (i.e., experiences of violence, challenges leaving an abusive relationship, chaos, using substances to cope, and social support) and one constitutive pattern (i.e., sowing the seeds of recovery) emerged from the data. These results highlight the importance of social support in promoting recovery and that social support may foster positive relationships with safe and trustworthy individuals as well as empower and support others with similar experiences...

Domestic workers (DWs) are integral to the daily lives of a significant portion of India's urban population, with an estimated 3.9 million individuals employed in domestic roles in urban areas, mostly women. This article explores the perceptions of home, house, and safe spaces among migrant women DWs in Delhi. Through in-depth interviews, it delves into their lived experiences as both breadwinners and survivors of domestic violence, revealing that (a) house and home are differently conceptualized by these workers; (b) their homes are perceived as warzones, reinforcing patriarchy through incidents of domestic violence and gendered subordination; and (c) women DWs navigate the complexities of conflicting identities as breadwinners and survivors within unequal gendered relationships...