Article Mexican Immigrant Women Reaching Out: The Role of Informal Networks in the Process of Seeking Help for Intimate Partner Violence (original) (raw)
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More inquiry is needed into how Mexican immigrant survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) are seeking help, to improve interventions designed to reach this isolated and vulnerable population. This grounded theory study, using a sample of 29 Mexican immigrant survivors of IPV and 15 key informants, examines the helpseeking process. Findings indicate that informal networks, particularly family and female friends, play a critical role in providing assistance and linking women to formal services. These findings have implications for the delivery of formal domestic violence services to this community as well as the response of police and other formal service systems.
Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 2015
This phenomenological grounded theory study, with a sample 29 Mexican immigrant women affected by intimate abuse and secondary sample of 15 service providers, examines the breaking point for help seeking and the type of help needed. Harm to children, infidelity, and threat to the participant's life were the most common breaking points. Some didn't know what type of help was needed, only that they could not solve the problem on their own. Other types included protection (physical and legal) from the abusive partner and economic assistance. The findings have implications for attorneys, domestic violence programs, mental health and social service programs, police, and health care workers.
Violence and Victims, 2009
Women's responses to partner abuse are shaped by their particular sociocultural contexts. In this study, quantitative data were collected from 75 Mexican-origin women who survived intimate partner abuse, to identify variables associated with help-seeking to survive relationship abuse. Help-seeking was defined as use of formal (e.g., shelter) and informal (e.g., family) sources. Variables included two cultural variables: machismo (i.e., adherence to traditional gender roles) and familismo (i.e., valuing family cohesion and reciprocity), and four sociostructural variables: income, education, English proficiency, and immigrant status. Results indicated participants with higher levels of familismo sought informal help more frequently than those with lower levels. Women with grade school education, no English proficiency, and undocumented status sought formal help less frequently than those not constrained by these barriers.
Violence and Victims, 2012
This phenomenological qualitative study examines intimate partner violence (IPV) experienced by a sample of 29 Mexican immigrant women residing in New York and St. Louis. The findings reveal important insights about culturally specific abuse tactics employed by batterers and the forms of abuse that are experienced as most hurtful to the survivors. Ten different abusive tactics emerged: verbal, economic, physical, sexual, and extended family abuse, social isolation, physical abuse of children, stalking and monitoring, stolen bride, and sex trafficking. Cultural values and expectations appear to be inextricably linked to how the participants characterized the severity of each of the abusive tactics as evidenced by which abusive behaviors the participants found most hurtful. The findings will help service providers have a better understanding of the role cultural context plays in the IPV experiences of Mexican immigrant women.
This Briefing Paper examines the obstacles for battered Latina women to preventing or escaping abuse and the services which are actually used to escape abuse. The Briefing Paper surveys the literature and then explores the results of a survey designed and conducted by the authors among Latinas in Washington, D.C. The results of the survey show that the most common services used by battered women are medical and social services not directly targeted on this population. The authors also set forth suggestions to professionals who come into contact with battered women. Because these women tend not to seek help specifically for domestic violence, professionals such as immigration lawyers and health care workers must have a heightened awareness of signs of abuse, and be sensitive to cultural differences, in order to elicit the truth about abuse from these women. In addition, literature and advertisements about abuse must be in Spanish, and must be available in all public service offices. Information about battering, protection orders, immigration and public benefits, and shelters and transitional housing must be disseminated throughout that community because these battered women most often turn to other women in their communities. Professionals must educate themselves
Strategies and Help-Seeking Behavior Among Mexican Women Experiencing Partner Violence
Violence Against Women, 2013
According to a recent Mexican survey, 10.72% of women have at some point experienced sexual partner violence, and 23.71% physical violence at the hands of their current or last partner. Using this survey and a series of semi-structured interviews with experts, this study used a mixed-methods approach to examine, first, whether women who experienced violence turned to law enforcement agencies for help, and the characteristics of these women. Second, the research examined what type of service and treatment they reported receiving from these agencies. Finally, the research examined reasons women did not request help from police and law enforcement agencies.
Exploring the Challenges Faced by Latinas Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence
This article explores the help-seeking challenges faced by a community sample of 25 Latina intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors. We include the experiences of Latinas who sought help from IPV services and those who did not. Additionally, we utilize an ecological framework to highlight the barriers that are present at multiple levels for Latinas who seek assistance, and we include their recommendations for increasing access. The information provided by these Latina survivors afford social workers the opportunity to address the barriers experienced by them as well as the opportunity to take a proactive stance in further enhancing services available in the community.
Psychosocial Intervention, 2014
Help-seeking is a process that is influenced by individual, interpersonal, and sociocultural factors. The current study examined these influences on the likelihood of seeking help (police, pressing charges, medical services, social services, and informal help) for interpersonal violence among a national sample of Latino women. Women living in high-density Latino neighborhoods in the USA were interviewed by phone in their preferred language. Women reporting being, on average, between "somewhat likely" and "very likely" to seek help should they experience interpersonal victimization. Sequential linear regression results indicated that individual (age, depression), interpersonal (having children, past victimization), and sociocultural factors (immigrant status, acculturation) were associated with the self-reported likelihood of seeking help for interpersonal violence. Having children was consistently related to a greater likelihood to seek all forms of help. Overall, women appear to respond to violence in ways that reflects their ecological context. Help-seeking is best understood within a multi-layered and dynamic context.
Based on a recent survey and six focus groups, we use a mixed methods approach to examine the help-seeking behavior of Mexican female victims of partner violence in law-enforcement agencies and among family members. Support the family provides women is critically examined. The results of the study suggest that families are not always a source of support: 41 % of the women who turned to public authorities did not mention it to their families, and 11 % did not seek help because they feared their families would find out. Formal help-seeking at law-enforcement agencies is the only choice for many Mexican women since family support has a dual nature, positive and negative. Families may further victimize female victims since partner violence against women triggers the contradiction among core familistic values: individual expectations (family obligations and support) might go against family expectations.