Who are you going to talk to? Help-seeking for partner violence among refugee-background young women in Australia

ABSTRACT

Objective

Adolescents are reported to be the fastest growing population at risk for intimate partner violence, and yet very few seek help, and those who do are more likely to turn to friends and family before, if at all, professional sources such as the police, mental health practitioners, social workers, health professionals and teachers. Research on refugee-background adolescents is scant despite their growing presence in migration flows to Australia and other western resettlement countries. This article reports on a qualitative investigation of help-seeking among young women from refugee backgrounds who had experienced partner violence during adolescence.

Method

Interview and focus group data were obtained from 17 cisgender young women and five helping professionals.

Results

Very few participants voluntarily sought professional help during or after a violent relationship due to a range of individual, interpersonal and sociocultural influences.

Conclusions

Prevention and intervention efforts should be anchored in a nuanced understanding of the contexts of partner violence for this population group as well as sensitivity to how disclosure and help-seeking may be influenced by age and developmental stage, cultural background, acculturation, and access to support services.

KEY POINTS

What is already known about this topic:

1. Adolescent partner violence is an important public health problem with significant physical, psychological, and social consequences for adolescents.

2. Preliminary research, mainly from the US, reports that very few adolescents seek professional help when violence occurs.

3. Although adolescents consistently account for a large proportion of the humanitarian intake in Australia, the US and other western resettlement countries, they are underrepresented in research.

What this topic adds:

1. This study sheds light on the individual, interpersonal and sociocultural contexts of help-seeking for partner violence in an under-researched population group.

2. Very few participants voluntarily sought professional help during or after a violent relationship. Barriers corresponded with, and diverged from, those reported for adolescents in the general adolescent population.

3. Recommendations are made to enhance the developmental and cultural fit of interventions designed for adolescents.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugee
• adolescents
• girls
• partner violence
• help-seeking
• service utilisation

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not possible due to privacy concerns of participants.