South Asians and the Role of Bystanders in Domestic Violence Prevention: Results from a Pilot Study

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Domestic violence manifests in unique ways in South Asian immigrant communities. Given the need to uphold family honor, formal help-seeking remains minimal within this community. Individuals experiencing victimization rely on friends and family members as informal sources of support. These friends and family members may also be bystanders who witness victimization. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine differences in participant responses to an online interactive bystander intervention developed for South Asians.

Methods

To get community response to the intervention, B.R.A.K.E. The Cycle, a Qualtrics link with all the intervention scenarios was posted on 21 sub-Reddit pages. Screeners to ensure that participants were of South Asian origin, 18 or older and currently residing in the United States (US) were added. True to the study purpose, to examine differences across gender and generational position, we conducted descriptive analysis and chi-square tests.

Results

There were differences in scenarios by gender and immigration position. Some of the main findings point to the need to report domestic violence, seek help (formal or informal) as well as surprisingly some responses justified the use of force by a male partner. We discuss these in-depth by scenarios.

Discussion

This is the first study to examine differences in bystander preference and response to using an intervention that was developed specifically for the South Asian community. Social workers can utilize this intervention to create dialogue around domestic violence prevention and the role of bystander within the South Asian and potentially other immigrant communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Domestic violence
• bystanders
• community intervention
• immigrants
• culturally-responsive

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/26408066.2024.2354465

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Loyola University Chicago, School of Social Work.