Sexual Violence And Undocumented Immigrant Women in NYC: A Participatory Action Research Project

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Sexual Violence And Undocumented Immigrant Women
in NYC A Participatory Action Research Project
REPORT BACK TO THE COMMUNITY MAY 9, 2006
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Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation II
Participatory Action Research Methods in
Community Based Inquiry

• The New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault
  (the Alliance)
• Alliance Team - Debi Fry, Daisy Deomampo,
  Kajori Chaudhuri
• The New School for Social Research -
  International Affairs Program (IAP)
• Teaching Team - Katy Taylor, Alberto Minujin

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New School Student Researchers

• Team 1 - Farzana Ramzan, Kate Crowley, Naomi
  Erickson
• Team 2 - Jen Zanowiak, Danielle Jacobs, Sarah
  Cooper
• Team 3 - Monica Paz, Kim Hafner, Sara Rowbottom

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Research Objectives

• Design participatory research tools that would
  provide immigrant women
• an opportunity to describe the impact sexual
  violence has on their lives
• a forum to reflect on the options women in their
  communities have when seeking help for sexual
  violence
• a forum to reflect on how sexual violence could
  be prevented in their community and
• a supportive and interactive environment to
  discuss a long-silenced danger in their lives.

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Course Objective

• To train students in participatory approaches to
  community based assessment and evaluation.
• Mentor student researchers to design and pilot
  action research methods in NYC communities

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Participatory Action Research

• What?
• A growing family of research methods that enable
  communities and their partners to analyze and
  enhance their own knowledge and to plan,
  prioritize, and evaluate research to address
  local concerns with a goal of community based
  action
• PAR shifts the normal balance from a closed to
  open, from individual to group, from verbal to
  more visual and is meant to foster partnerships
  and collaborations
• Why?
• To empower and build capacity of organizations
  and communities to solve problems together.

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Research Process

• Literature Review / Desk Research
• Stakeholder Analysis
• Research Design and Tool Development
• Pilot Tools
• Data and Process Analysis

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Overview - How tools were applied
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Stakeholder Research

• 57 stakeholders representing 30 organizations
• Stakeholders were drawn from diverse fields law
  enforcement/criminal justice, city agencies,
  legal, community development, health and human
  services, research/policy, immigrant and
  refugee-focused, womens community-based, sexual
  violence and domestic violence-oriented
  organizations
• Feedback obtained through individual and small
  group interviews, and research workshops

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Preliminary Findings from Stakeholders

• General agreement that sexual violence is a
  crucial topic to address
• Intimate partner violence is most common form of
  SV faced by immigrant women
• Reluctance to broach undocumented status with
  immigrant women
• Division about who should facilitate in different
  communities

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Sexual Violence And Undocumented Immigrant Women
in NYC A Participatory Action Research Project
SCOPE AND IMPACT OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE ON
UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT WOMEN

• Kate Crowley, Farzana Ramzan, Naomi Erickson
• Mentor Katy Taylor
• Community Report Back
• The New School Graduate Program in International
  Affairs
• with the New York City Alliance Against Sexual
  Assault
• New York, NY
• May 9, 2006

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Research Question

• WHAT IS THE SCOPE AND IMPACT OF SEXUAL
  VIOLENCE AMONG UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN
  NEW YORK CITY?

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STRUCTURE OF PILOT GROUP SESSION

• PURPOSE
• Obtain information about scope and impact from
  the group
• Understand and listen to individual stories
• Empower women in the group
• FORMAT
• List and rank
• Transition questions about safety and security
• Focus group discussion on scope and impact of
  sexual violence
• Wrap-up questions
• Picture survey and demographic survey

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DEMOGRAPHICS OF WOMEN IN THE PILOT GROUP SESSION

• BACKGROUND
• Four women, aged 38-52 years old, from
  CentralAmerica, the Caribbean, and West Africa
• LOCATION
• An organization that provides services for
  immigrants
• Living in the United States from 2 to 20 years
• 3 married, 1 separated
• Diverse religions and education levels (primary
  to university)
• 3 unemployed
• 3 of the 4 women meeting regularly to discuss
  domestic violence

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LIST AND RANKIDENTIFYING KEY ISSUES

• WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES FACING
  IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN YOUR COMMUNITY?
• 1. LEGAL STATUS
• 2. Work Permit 3. Studies 4. Medical
• Other Issues
• Disrespect, Job Training Programs, Exploitation,
  Housing, Lack of Information

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FOCUS GROUPFindings

• WE ASKED
• WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS AROUND SAFETY AND SECURITY?
• WHICH WOMEN FEEL LEAST SAFE?
• RESPONSES FROM IMMIGRANT WOMEN
• POLICE WILL ONLY INTERVENE IN DV CASES IF THEY
  CAN ARREST THE HUSBAND
• POLICE ARE THE ENEMY DISEMPOWERING. ONE
  COMMENTED THAT THE POLICE HAD HELPED HER
• HARASSED AT WORK DUE TO LEGAL STATUS
• SITUATION IS WORSE FOR GIRLS UNDER 15 WHO ARE NEW
  TO THE UNITED STATES

"VICTIM OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE DOES NOT GET
RESPECT BECAUSE ONCE THEY HEAR YOUR ACCENT,
PEOPLE ASSUME THAT YOU ARE ILLEGAL AND DONT PAY
MUCH RESPECT TO YOU."
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FOCUS GROUPFindings

• WE ASKED
• WHAT IS THE SCOPE OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE THAT YOU
  HAVE ENCOUNTERED?
• RESPONSES FROM IMMIGRANT WOMEN
• MARITAL RAPE
• WIFES DUTY TO OBLIGE IF HUSBAND WANTS SEX
• CHILD MOLESTATION BY RELATIVE/FAMILIAR ADULT
• HARRASSMENT AT WORK (fondling, sexual comments)
• Domestic workers particularly at risk
• EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL

MY HUSBAND WOULD RAPE ME WHILE I WAS ASLEEP. I
WOULD WAKE UP WITH HIM ON TOP OF ME. I WAS UNSAFE
EVEN WHEN I WAS ASLEEP.
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FOCUS GROUPFindings

• WE ASKED
• WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE ON
  YOUR LIFE?
• RESPONSES FROM IMMIGRANT WOMEN
• SENSE OF ISOLATION
• TROUBLE TRUSTING NEW MEN BRINGING THEM AROUND
  CHILDREN
• UNWANTED PREGNANCY
• TERRIBLE FEELING PAIN IN STOMACH
• SUICIDAL
• HIV/AIDS
• TURNED TO RELIGION

I WOULD RIDE THE SUBWAY TO GET AWAY FROM HIM.
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INDIVIDUAL SURVEYS

• Developing the Survey
• Quantitative data
• Policy and law impact
• Built on IRC and WHO surveys
• Demographics of Interviewees
• Age range from 25-55
• Albanian, East African, South Asian, South
  African
• In US from 3 to 29 years
• 2 married, 1 single

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INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW SURVEYSFINDINGS

• Scope Findings
• Sexual violence at work
• Domestic violence
• Emotional abuse
• Impact
• Disowned by family
• Had to leave job
• Felt as though it was their fault

I KEPT ASKING MYSELF - DID I DO SOMETHING TO
PROVOKE HIM?
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SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

• SCOPE
• MARITAL RAPE
• SEXUAL HARRASSMENT AND ASSAULT AT WORK
• CHILD ABUSE BY RELATIVE/STEP-PARENT
• STRANGER RAPE
• EMOTIONAL DEGRADATION
• IMPACT
• HELPLESSNESS/ISOLATION
• SUICIDAL
• FEAR OF LOSS OF JOB
• SCARED OF POLICE AT TIMES
• FEAR OF DEPORTATION
• HIV/AIDS

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PROCESS/OBSERVATIONS

• CONCERN
• Would immigrant women be willing to respond to
  our questions about sexual violence in their
  lives?
• OBSERVATION
• Immigrant women want to tell their stories.
• They want to be heard.
• They want to be believed.

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PROCESS/OBSERVATIONS

• CONCERN
• Would our research empower participants?
• RESPONSES FROM IMMIGRANT WOMEN
• I USE MY EXPERIENCE TO HELP OTHER PEOPLE.
• HEARING OTHER STORIES - TELLING MY OWN
  EXPERIENCE IS HEALING.
• IT HELPS TO BREAK THE ISOLATION I FEEL.

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• THANK YOU!
• GRACIAS!
• MERCI!

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Sexual Violence And Undocumented Immigrant Women
in NYC A Participatory Action Research Project
PREVENTION

• Kimberly Hafner, Monica Paz, Sara Rowbottom,
• Daisy Deomampo, Mentor
• Community Report Back
• The New School Graduate Program in International
  Affairs
• with the New York City Alliance Against Sexual
  Assault
• New York, NY
• May 9, 2006

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Research Question

• How can we end sexual violence?

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Understanding prevention

• An ambitious set of goals
• Identify social, cultural, economic and other
  circumstances that enable sexual violence to
  occur
• Identify barriers undocumented immigrant women
  face to reduce their risk
• Pinpoint moments in womens lives when prevention
  can do the most good
• Obtain results that go beyond the common
  responses of education, outreach, and awareness
• Identify existing community resources that could
  put prevention activities into practice
• Identify what potential prevention activities
  might be

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Choosing individual and group approaches
Participatory List Rank and Strategy
DiagramList Rank Common tool to identify
specific types of sexual violence that are common
in a communityStrategy Diagram Previously been
used to represent information gathered in other
participatory exercises, i.e. causal flow
analysis and problem trees (Moser and McIlwaine
2000) Individual in-depth interviews Identify
causes of sexual violence that prevention must
address, critical moments for prevention
activities to take place, positive resources to
strengthen
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Working with women

• Where and when
• Bronx Spanish-speaking group
• April 20th 2006, 6 women
• Queens Spanish-speaking group
• April 27th 2006, 11 women
• Queens English-speaking group
• April 27th 2006, 4 women
• 3 individual interviews 1 Spanish speaking, 2
  English speaking

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Listing and Ranking
What are the types of sexual violence that women
in your community face?
I live alone too. I have only just my daughter,
and now I have my boyfriend. I have nobody. And,
sometimes people really want to abuse you because
you are alone. I am as strong when I am
alone. .. I take my decisions. I do whatever I
need to do. When you are with a family, the
family is saying No, do this. Dont do that. For
me now, its more better for me.

• Domestic Violence/Power
• partner forcing sex (linked to alcoholism)
• mental abuse within the family
• intimidation by partner
• Child Sexual Abuse

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Thoughts on Listing and Ranking

• Comfortable participating, even in English
• Liked talking about the subject they dont get
  to talk about this much, there arent many people
  you can trust
• Felt that this was the first step towards
  prevention

You feel that everybody has some problem.
Its small or big, its something.
..What we learn here, we can share with somebody
else... I think we are strong because we really
start talking about this. This is the first step
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Strategy Diagram
Overall, how can we stop this problem in your
community?
Dangerous situations (listing and ranking goes
here)
How can we implement these strategies in your
community?
What would you do first to prevent ______?
To whom or where could you go for help?
Community Needs

• Education of Men
• More support for women (job training, education,
  etc.)
• Culturally sensitive providers
• More resources in Spanish
• Harsher laws

We are thinking about us the women but, the
men have to be involved in order to for this to
benefit the whole community
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Thoughts on Strategy Diagram

• Women excited for opportunity to speak about a
  sensitive topic had never done that before
• Women liked the Strategy Diagram especially
  because it allowed them to see the linear process
  of what was happening
• Analyzing allows them to go deeper into the
  subject than other exercises might
• The groups wanted us to come back to do more
  participatory workshops!

You know, everything sounds really good. But
its not going to happen the next month. Not the
next year. This is going to take a very long
time.
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Individual Interviews

• Findings
• Education on all levels school, family,
  community, government needed for prevention
• Positive role models needed
• Better socialization of men needed
• Reverse stigma - so men feel shame rather than
  women
• Workshops for men needed
• Team Thoughts
• Some questions were repetitive and unclear,
  needed a lot of prompting
• Too long!
• Definition of sexual violence too complicated

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Final Thoughts by Team Three

• Babysitters needed!
• Organization Contact needs to be familiar with
  project
• Discussions were rich but important to monitor
  time to give equal time for exercises
• Smaller groups of no more than 6 participants are
  ideal
• Participatory exercises worked to get beyond
  education, awareness, and outreach!
• We felt empowered and the women felt empowered

We have a lot to say!... Were women! Thank God!
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• THANK YOU!
• GRACIAS!
• MERCI!

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Sexual Violence And Undocumented Immigrant Women
in NYC A Participatory Action Research Project
INTERVENTION

• Debi Fry, Sarah Cooper,
• Danielle Jacobs Jennifer Zanowiak
• Community Report Back
• The New School Graduate Program in International
  Affairs
• with New York City Alliance Against Sexual
  Assault
• New York, NY
• May 9, 2006

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Intervention Research Questions

• What are the knowledge and attitudes around
  services and interventions for sexual violence?
• Do immigrant women know about the services that
  are available?
• For those who do know about the services and do
  not access them, why arent they?

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Intervention Pilot

• Saturday, April 29th
• NYC West African Womens Group
• Group Demographics
• 8 Women
• Average Age 29, Range 26-34
• 6 African countries represented
• 6 French speaking, 2 English-only speaking
• Had lived 5-13 years in the United States

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Focus Group Vignette Design

• Vignette
• A simple, open-ended story that is relevant
  across cultures. Names and location can be
  changed to make it culturally specific.
  Participants were asked to discuss different
  questions about the story.
• We based our vignette design on
• Research showing that people are more comfortable
  speaking about sensitive issues in the 3rd person
• Open-ended stories are useful for exploring
  peoples beliefs and opinions, and for
  identifying problems or solutions
• The importance of stories as a means of
  expression and communication in many cultures
• Knowledge from stakeholder interview and the
  literature review that intimate partner SV was
  the most common form across cultures

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Focus Group Vignette

• Kadiatous Story
• Kadiatou lives with her husband Bakary in
  Harlem with their two young children.
• Neither have legal papers.
• Kadiatou does not work and her husband
  controls the money.
• When Bakary comes home drunk, he insults her
  and forces her to have sex even though she
  doesnt want to.
• Kadiatou has tried talking to him, and has put
  up with this situation for many years. She
  doesnt know what to do.

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Focus Group Vignette Scenarios
a. Kadiatou decides to ask for help b.
Kadiatou decides to do nothing c. Kadiatou
decides to leave Bakary d. She asks someone to
talk to Bakary
help-seeking behavior
knowledge attitudes about services service
availability/accessibility
intervention of others help for men
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Findings Knowledge about available services

• Where does Kadiatou go to ask for help?
• Other women
• Someone who had a similar experience
• Husbands friend
• Mosque
• African community based organization
• Healthcare professional
• Social service organization
• Elder
• We asked participants to name specific places in
  their community.
• You keep asking who. I dont know exactly
  who.
• Where should Bakary go for help?
• Bakary? Help? I dont know, to be honest.

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Findings Help-seeking Behaviors Attitudes

• Resistance to seeking out formal services (i.e.
  social workers and police).
• In the African community, in general, if the
  wife will complain, the relationship would
  spoil.
• Elle ne doit pas aller à la police parce
  quelle na pas de papiers et aussi ça serait une
  trahison pour son mari et sa famille à cause de
  la mentalité africaine. 
• Elders are an important mechanism for
  intervention, but often they are not here.
• If the wife goes and tells the friends that
  Bakary drinks, hes gonna be mad
• Si elle na pas de parents ici, elle doit
  prendre ses responsabilités.
• Moral responsibility to maintain family.
• Sometimes its hard when you have kids and the
  husband like that
• Whether she stays or she leaves, the woman deals
  with the repercussions.
•  Si elle reste ça risque de la tuer. 
•  Tu ne peux pas le quitter parce que cest lui
  qui ta ramenée au US et il ny a pas de solution
  parce quelle na pas de papiers. 

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Debrief Vignette

• Realistic story and happens in their communities.
• It happens daily. They dont know what to do
  because they dont have paper. Because most of
  African women and men dont have paper. They are
  illegal.
• Women felt empowered developed ideas regarding
  how to help or get help if they encountered a
  similar situation.
• They liked participating in the exercise.
• Discussing is good. We know each others
  ideas. We share ideas.
• I think its a good idea because in this country
  you dont get the chance to talk with people and
  express your opinions.
• Women appreciated the opportunity to discuss the
  interplay of ways of life in their home countries
  and in the United States.

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Picture Survey
Scope Experience with SV as a
child? as an adult?
by
an intimate partner? at work? Help-seeking
behaviors attitudes
Did you tell / would you tell no one?
a friend or relative? a member of a religious
organization? the police? someone at a
hospital/clinic? someone at a
hotline? WHO found higher reported prevalence
when anonymous surveys were used in combination
with interviews Designed as a low literacy tool
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Findings Picture SurveyScope Help-Seeking

• Of the 41 women we surveyed
• 28 (68) experienced sexual violence at some time
• 11 (27) experienced child sexual violence (lt 15
  yrs. old)
• 21 (51) experienced sexual violence as adult (gt
  15 yrs. old)
• 21 (51) experienced sexual violence by an
  intimate partner
• 11 (27) experienced sexual violence while at a
  job
• In reality and in a hypothetical situation,
  participants were
• 1) less likely to tell someone about their
  experience
• 2) more likely to tell a friend or relative
  rather than seek formal services

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Debrief Picture Survey

• Participants wanted to be able to mark mother
  as a person they had told about their experience.
  
• In our focus groups, women knew each other and
  were comfortable completing the survey. Although
  it was meant to be anonymous, many of them did it
  together.
• Explanation of the directions required a
  significant amount of time, particularly due to
  confusion regarding the instructions if
  participants had not experienced a form of sexual
  violence. (hypothetical question Would
  you tell)

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Recommendations

• Vignette gathered useful information about
  participants help seeking activities and
  attitudes of sexual violence for forms of
  intimate partner sexual violence.
• ? Design vignettes for other forms of sexual
  violence and target questions at raising
  awareness about services.
• Use focus group session as a tool for empowerment
  and encourage women to think about intervention
  solutions in their communities.
• A common theme was discussion around different
  senses of community in Africa vs. NYC. Consider
  the various kinds of communities to which
  participants belong and let the women define
  them.