Intimate Partner Violence: A Narrative Analysis of the Jamaican Women Experience

Purpose/Background

The purpose of this study is to examine the nature and scope of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) experience by Jamaican women. In Jamaica, IPV cases are not documented under appropriate indices and as a result there is a lack of studies with qualitative and quantitative data. Jamaica has serious safety concerns, majority of murder occurred due to domestic violence. Sexual assault is a significant predictor and contributor to IPV, and is the second most common cause of injury for women on the island.

Methods

Women attending a religious institution located within the northeastern corridor of the United States were recruited to participate in this study through purposive sampling and snowballing methods. They were individually interviewed and was asked five-open-ended question about their experience of physical, sexual and emotional violence, the perpetrator’s reaction, family and friends reaction, the women help-seeking behavior. The principles of qualitative narrative theory and grounded theory were utilized to identify and configure themes.

Results

Research participants were heterosexual Jamaican women with an average age of 40 years. The participants had experienced three forms of abuse, however, the experience of sexual and physical abuse were more severe among eighty percent of the participants. Perpetrators react to being confronted over food, sex, money, how to parent their children, and refusal to pay the utility bills and buy grocery, by abusing the women and thereafter engaged in an extended period of silence—emotional isolation, and leaving the home—spatial isolation as forms of control. When the women shared their experience with violence to the family and friends, they react as silence witness and offered little or no support to them, and encourage them to leave their concerns to God. The women help seeking approaches focuses on praying and fasting, on the urging of church pastors who often admonished the women to be more spiritually submissive to their partners. Findings indicates that there is a strong relationship between the women’s religious belief and their decision to stay with the perpetrator; women’s perception of their IPV experience is shaped by the tenets of Jamaican cultural values and norms; a lack of institutional support, gaps in governmental policy in the area of IPV, lack of intervention and prevention resources, education, and ongoing economic constraints that influences the participants’ outlook and acts as barriers to their decision of leaving the perpetrator. Equally systems of shame—government, religion, media, family, and community—often left the women isolated and harboring feelings of humiliation and confusion forcing them back into the shadow of the abuse.

Conclusion/Implications

It is imperative to teach social work students about the role of culture, religion and government on shaping women’s perception about IPV; women’s risks of all forms increases due to lack of awareness, social support, and governmental policy protection. Social work researchers in Jamaica must forge ontologies that denote their culture’s reality, versus relying on outsiders to coin or fabricate meaning of what they believe Jamaica represents. Jamaican women’s realities must also be documented offering their perspectives via research.