The journey of the African born women from Intimate Partner Violence to seeking help

This PhD study investigated how the African-born women in Australia are seeking help to end the Intimate partner Violence (IPV). The Northern Territory (NT) served as the fieldwork location. The study was motivated by a lack of recent evidence in the NT and Australia more broadly on help-seeking behaviours among women immigrants, particularly, among the African-born women.
The study involved interviews with professionals from support agencies in Darwin and IPV survivors, with cases resolved. It investigated if, and what is the link between incidence of help-seeking to address IPV among the African-born women and the interplay of intersectional factors, and the cultural sensitivity of the professional support services they accessed.
Focused ethnographic research methods involving semi-structured interviews, observation, and field notes were used. The study was theoretically framed by intersectionality.
This presentation summarises the final results from my study. A social-ecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) provided an in-depth analysis and interpretation of the professionals’ and the women survivor’s accounts of their journey to seeking help. Seven factors- individual, family, community, and socio cultural, organisational, policy and African socialisation emerged at different overlapping levels. The overlap reflects how factors at one level influence and interact with factors at another level and how they influence attitudes and help seeking behaviours among the African women. This framework offered an ample base to make suggestions for future strategies that need to be developed and deployed to address causal factors at multiple levels simultaneously.