Minoritised Ethnic Women's Experiences of Domestic Abuse and Barriers to Help-Seeking: A Summary of the Evidence

Methodology

This evidence review draws on 48 peer-reviewed journal articles, chapters and books published in the UK in the last 10 years. It is important to note that this is not a systematic evidence review. The review does not therefore claim to represent a full or exhaustive coverage of all the research on the topic but is instead a summary of the published academic evidence which could be identified, accessed and reviewed in the time available. The literature search was undertaken as part of a 6 month (part-time) PhD internship scheme within Scottish Government's Justice Analytical Services. A draft report was independently peer reviewed by an academic expert.

Scope and Limitations

Whilst this literature review makes a valuable contribution to the knowledge base, some limitations do exist. These are set out below:

• The literature search was limited to UK-based academic research published within the last ten years, between 2013 and 2023.
• Searches of academic literature databases signaled a dearth of research in Scotland; only four peer-reviewed articles were found. Most of the empirical evidence referenced in this report is from research conducted in England, often concerning migrant minoritised ethnic women. A small number of studies are comparative in nature e.g. comparing UK and India.
• The research covers a range of ethnicities, in particular South Asian (n=15 articles). For the majority of studies, ethnicity was described as 'BME' or mixed (e.g. victims of HBA) (n=22). There was limited research found on African and Afro-Caribbean women (n=5), very few covering Hindi women's experiences (n=2) and none on Chinese or Sikh women's experiences. The remainder of the articles tended to covered intersectionality more generally (n=4). The review did not seek to explore white minoritised ethnic women's experiences of domestic abuse (e.g. Gypsy, Irish Traveller or Roma).
• Grey literature, for example, reports from governments and statutory organisations, NGOs, think tank and third sector organisations were excluded from the literature search and analysis. However, a small number of government and non-government reports have been included in the report to add context and background.
• A full list of search terms is provided in Annex 1. Key search terms included 'intersectionality', 'BME women', 'BAME women', 'minority ethnic women' AND 'domestic violence' and 'domestic abuse'. Using different search terms such as 'intimate partner violence' and/or additional topics like 'family abuse', 'honour-based abuse' or 'forced marriage' would have yielded considerably more literature. It was not possible in the time available, to utilise all possible search terms relevant to this topic. There is also limited coverage of sexual violence for similar reasons.
• The report is not comparative in nature and does not therefore compare experiences of minoritised ethnic groups to those of majority white ethnic groups. Evidence already exists on the latter, which although similar in some respects, is distinct from the themes identified in the literature reviewed for this report.

Literature Search Methodology

Several literature searches were undertaken to identify relevant academic articles to include in this evidence review. This included some general searches conducted by the Scottish Government Library Services to gauge the range of evidence available on the topic, followed by more focused literature searches (see Annex 1). A range of academic databases and search engines were used to identify relevant literature including the Scottish Government's 'KandE' system and Google Scholar. Literature was also identified via 'snowballing' (where articles cited in selected papers were accessed and considered for inclusion) and a small number were garnered via internal and external contacts and academic experts, including an independent peer reviewer.

Research papers based on empirical data collection and analysis were prioritised. Considerations when assessing evidence for selection included ascertaining if the methodology of the study was intersectional, and the relevance of the study to the topic. For example, if studies that were flagged as 'intersectional' did not include race or racialisation in its analysis, or how race intersected with gender and GBV, they were excluded.

The academic articles reviewed comprised mostly of qualitative research; the majority of them involved primary data collection through interviews and focus-groups with victim-survivors and/or practitioners. Most of the evidence reviewed was based on in-depth studies with relatively small sample sizes (<50). While the sample sizes of these studies do not allow for statistically representative findings, this can be a necessary trade-off due to the challenges and ethical considerations when undertaking research on sensitive topics like this which often necessitates small sample sizes typically accessed via specialist organisations (see Chantler, 2018). Moreover, this type of qualitative research can provide valuable insight into people's lived experience that is not readily accessed via quantitative methods such as population surveys.

Research findings from the selected studies were analysed thematically as they related to the research aims. Five distinct themes emerged from the analysis which shed light on minoritised ethnic women's experiences of domestic abuse and barriers to help-seeking. These are presented in the next chapter.

Conceptual Model - Intersectionality

As noted, the evidence review sought to understand minoritised ethnic women's experiences of domestic abuse through an intersectional lens^[18]. In this report intersectionality is understood as an approach, which is "a way of identifying, understanding and tackling structural inequality in a given context that accounts for the lived experience of people with intersecting identities" (Scottish Government, 2022 p3). Within this framework social categories such as race, gender and class are understood to be "interdependent and indivisible from one another" (Christoffersen, 2021 p5). Thus both structural inequalities and socio-cultural norms can help explain how different forms of marginalisation can shape minoritised ethnic women's experiences of domestic abuse.