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Seeking Help to Protect the Children?: The Influence of Children on Women’s Decisions to Seek Help When Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

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Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has a detrimental effect on the wellbeing of victims and their children. Situational as well as individual factors shape victims’ responses to the experiences of IPV in many ways. This study uses a quantitative approach to examine the factors that influence victims’ decisions on whether and where to seek help. The role of (unborn) children has been examined together with other demographic and situational factors to reveal their influence on victims’ help-seeking decisions. Two items were used to measure the role of children, including victims’ pregnancy at the time of the abuse and children residing with the victim and witnessing the abuse. Relevant findings derived from the analysis of a sub-sample of women interviewed in the process of the International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS) 2002/03 are discussed throughout this paper with a specific focus on the role of children. While the presence of unborn children (i.e., pregnancy) had no effect on victims’ help-seeking decisions, children witnessing the abuse emerged as the strongest predictor of general and more formalized help-seeking decisions.

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Notes

  1. This study is part of a PhD research, consisting of two components. The second component uses qualitative face-to-face interviews with approximately 30 women who have experienced intimate partner violence to gain in-depths information on some of the themes identified in study one as well as women’s experiences and satisfaction with different types of help-seeking. Among other factors, the qualitative component examines the complex interplay of factors influencing decisions on help-seeking when children are involved. Findings from that component will be published at a later stage.

  2. This variable offers no information on victims’ current English-skills and/or cultural background.

  3. For more detail regarding the original methodology and the study’s aim of establishing a prevalence estimation of violence experienced by women residing in Australia and related findings, see Mouzos and Makkai 2004.

  4. Age is used for descriptive purposes in this study but will not be included in later bivariate and multivariate analysis as it relates to victims’ age at time of data collection rather than at the time of the most recent abusive incident.

  5. Thirty of these women (9.1%) had also contacted a court in relation to the most recent incident. Due to the small number of victims with IPV-related court contact, this type of help-seeking has not been examined separately.

  6. The overall PhD research furthermore examined between group differences based on partner-related variables and violence-related variables. For the purpose of this paper, only victim-related variables are included in the discussion due to the key focus on the role of children. Bivariate and multivariate findings relating to violence-related variables will be published as part of a theoretical paper, examining the applicability of Walker’s ‘Hypothesis of Learned Helplessness’ and Gondolf’s ‘Survivor Hypothesis’.

  7. Indigenous Status has been excluded from the following discussion due to the previously mentioned lack of statistical significance and a range of low cell counts. Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander status only produced significant results for differences between refuge- and non-refuge-seeking women, with a greater number of Indigenous/Torres Strait Islander women seeking refuge when compared to Non-Indigenous women living in Australia. Still, these differences need to be regarded with care as more than 25% of cells had expected counts less than 5 due to the small number of Aboriginal/ Torres Strait Islander victims found in the overall sub-sample (n = 31).

  8. Similar to the first part of statistical analysis, multivariate analysis also incorporated partner- and violence-related variables in addition to victim-related variables. Only results from logistic regression analysis of the victim-related model will be discussed here due to the particular focus of this paper.

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  1. Institute for Social Science Research, ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing & Security, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld, 4072, Australia

    Silke Meyer

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Meyer, S. Seeking Help to Protect the Children?: The Influence of Children on Women’s Decisions to Seek Help When Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence. J Fam Viol 25, 713–725 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-010-9329-1

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