Keeping silent or running away. The voices of Vietnamese women survivors of Intimate Partner Violence

Figures & data

Table 1. Sociodemographic information of informants (n = 8)

Pseudonym	Age	Occupation	Husband’s occupation	Place of origin	N. Children	Length of IPV
Resident 1	42 years	Waitress	construction worker	Rural area	3	4 years
Resident 2	35 years	Tailor	Unemployed	City	1	8 years
Resident 3	24 years	College student	doctor	Rural area	1	2 years
Resident 4	30 years	No steady job	Not answered	City	2	2 years
Resident 5	56 years	Farmer	Farmer, construction worker, and motorbike taxi driver.	Rural area	3	38 years
Resident 6	28 years	Works in a bank	Soldier	Rural area	1	2 years
Resident 7	40 years	Businesswoman	Not answered	Rural area	2	12 years
Resident 8	21 years	Working in ice-tea shop (in-laws’ business).	Unemployed	Rural area	1	2 years

Table 2. Theme ‘keeping silent’. Subtheme ‘keeping the family together’

Resident	Selected Quotes
Resident 7	[…] I thought I must strive for my son. I had to accept [violence] in order to keep a full family for him.
Resident 8	If I had divorced my husband, I would not have known where to go … [.]. If I had moved out, my child would also have struggled. […] I also accepted this because I love my daughter. I didn’t know where I could take care of my child, where I could go. […]
Resident 3	If I had divorced my husband, I would have taken care of my child alone. […]I had not had a job yet. I had thought he could buy a house and a car by himself. He also has a stable career, so I believed he was the one I could depend on to raise my child.

Table 3. Theme ‘keeping silent’. Subtheme ‘fear of being ashamed and blamed’

Resident	Selected Quotes
Resident 8	I was afraid he’d be in jail again. It’s true that wife-beating breaks the law. Therefore, I was afraid. He had already stayed in prison one time, so it was easy for him to be put back again, and that would bring shame to my family again. […] Also my parents were ashamed of what people said about my marriage. And I felt shamed with everyone. I also did not share anything with my friends.
Resident 7	I think it [keeping silent] is because of worrying for their children and thinking of their families. We [women suffering from IPV] also think of our honor. We have a reputation as married women. I have to say that if we divorce, we would feel shame in front of other people.
Resident 1	I had lived with violence for a long time in the past. I had seen my father beat my mother. So, it affected me […] […] I convinced myself that my husband could beat me. […] When I told my father (about the abuse), he said, ‘He is a husband, so he has the right to beat and scold his wife’.

Table 4. Theme ‘leaving the abuser’. Subtheme ‘seeking help from family and friends’

Resident	Selected Quotes
Resident 5	I ran to seek help from my relatives. I asked them to stay and hide in their houses after he vented his anger, and I would return to my home afterwards.
Resident 3	My close friends couldn’t help me very much. I don’t have any close friends in the city (where I lived with my husband). They are poor and live in a rural area.
Resident 7	There was one day that he (husband) went to the hair salon to search for me. So, I ran to hide in my neighbor’s toilet. After he left the salon, I came to my acquaintance’s house and hid in their house for half a day.
Resident 4	He (husband) scolded my parents. He put death curses on my parents. He said he wished they would have a car accident or a train accident. All this was because I asked them for help.
Resident 5	I quickly shut the door, ran upstairs to my sister-in-law’s room, and told her that my husband wanted to stab me. His sister was so afraid of him too.

Table 5. Theme ‘leaving the abuser’. Subtheme ‘seeking help from the peace health shelter’

Resident	Selected Quotes
Resident 6	Today, he could scold me, so tomorrow he would beat me, and the day after tomorrow he would kill me. I had to leave him, and I needed some help for that.
Resident 1	My child was not a resident in this city, so it was very difficult to be a pupil in a school in the city due to the school systems, but the PHS supported us so I am satisfied.
Resident 8	I did not think the PHS and counselling service are free, and this was one reason I did not seek help earlier.
Resident 2	Each time my husband took my son out (to motels), he (my son) was always sick and scared. […] He said to me ‘Mommy, there was a tottering giant and it juts out the tongue to tease me’. And he started to point this place … that place. I was really scared. My son is really afraid of his father. So every time, he just remembered that his dad was taking a knife and chasing him and his mother. This made me realize that I needed to seek help from the PHS.

Table 6. Theme ‘leaving the abuser’. Subtheme ‘seeking and taking others’ advice’

Resident	Selected Quotes
Resident 1	I told my mother (about the situation), I asked for her advice. She sat and consoled me. She said only one sentence, ‘In modern life, you have the right to decide, and do not be like me who wasted half of my life’.
Resident 2	When I shared everything with her [her husband’s aunt], she advised me that I should try to take care of my child in a good way, that I should divorce my husband. She would never want to advise me to divorce her nephew if there were other ways to escape: ‘You should do something good for your child and you should do what is good for yourself. Let’s do it’.
Resident 4	My child and I looked pitiful. It was midnight, and my hair was ruffed because he had beaten me. I didn’t want to live anymore. I crossed the street and waited for a car accident. A taxi driver saw me holding my baby with one arm, and holding my other child’s hand while walking, and he took my child and me to the street [CWD’s address] after giving me some advice.