Project: Social connectivity and help seeking behavior among abused women in rural Bangladesh - a cross-cultural qualitative study

Project information

Project manager
Katarina Swahnberg
Other project members
Md Hafijur Rahman, Dr. Pranab Dahal, Linnaeus University
Participating organizations
Linnaeus University, Sweden, Domeseatic Violence Prevention Research Team, Department of Social Work, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh.
Financier
The Crafoord Foundation (Research grants -2023)
Timetable
01-01-2024 to 31-12-2024
Subject
Health Sciences (Department of Health and Caring Sciences, Linnaeus University, Faculty of health and life sciences)

Research team after a Community Capacity Building Workshop. Photo Credit: Domestic Violence Prevention Research Team, Department of Social Work, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh.

More about the project

In Bangladesh, 72.6% women experienced one or more forms of violence by their husband in their conjugal life. The prevalence varied in between rural and urban areas where the highest (74.8%) was reported in rural areas. Previous studies have shown that women’s awareness, level of education and marital gender equality can protect against domestic violence. Social connectivity and help seeking behavior of the abused women might be a crucial factor to reduce victimization and revictimization, particularly in rural areas. Previous studies in the context of rural Bangladesh didn’t focus to explore the patterns of social connectivity and help seeking behavior among the abused women. Moreover, post domestic violence supports are also confined to a few urban areas targeting the mainstream population, though there are also many ethnic minorities. Even if, the pattern of women’s social connectivity and help seeking behaviour among the abused women may vary from community to community.

This study will explore the pattern of social connectivity and help seeking behavior among married women in ethnic minority Santal and Garo as well as mainstream Bengali communities in rural Bangladesh.

This project is a qualitative research project which embrace three ethnic communities: patriarchal mainstream Bengali, matrinilial ethnic minority Garo and patriarchal ethnic minority Santal. The fieldwork will be conducted in six villages (two from each community). The primary criterion for selecting the villages will be the presence of an ethnic community, and rural context in the area. The qualitative data will be collected through Focus Group Discussions (one from each village).

This study also focus to develop international collaboration with the same minded researchers to prevent domestic violence, gender inequality and to ensure empowerment of women and girls in South Asia (particularly Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka & Nepal) and to generate new research project ideas and develop new project to attain SDG-5.

This project is mainly a part of a doctoral student’ study (Md Hafijur Rahman). The project will be carried out in the villages in collaboration with the domestic violence prevention research team at the Department of Social Work, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. The results will increase knowledge to understand how married women’s social connectivity and help seeking behavior are playing a role to ensure their post abused support services and to reduce the vulnerability to repetitive abuse by their partner.

Demo Community Education for adult members. Photo credit: Domestic Violence Prevention Research Team, Department of Social Work, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh.