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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Tools
Common
Team 1
Scope & Impact
List and
Rank
Team 2
Intervention
List and
Rank
Team 3
Prevention
List and
Rank (different variation)
Unique Focus Group Vignette Strategy
Diagram
Common
Picture Survey &
Demographic
Survey
Picture Survey &
Demographic
Survey
Picture Survey &
Demographic
Survey

• 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 refugeefocused, women’s community-based, sexual violence and domestic violence-oriented organizations
• Feedback obtained through individual and small group interviews, and research workshops

• 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

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

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

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
I.
List and rank
II.
Transition questions about safety and security
III.
Focus group discussion on scope and impact of sexual violence
IV.
Wrap-up questions
V.
Picture survey and demographic survey

DEMOGRAPHICS OF WOMEN IN THE
PILOT GROUP SESSION
BACKGROUND
Four women, aged 38-52 years old, from Central
America, 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

LIST AND RANK
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

Findings
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 DON’T PAY MUCH RESPECT TO YOU."

Findings
WE ASKED
 WHAT IS THE SCOPE OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE THAT YOU
HAVE ENCOUNTERED?
RESPONSES FROM IMMIGRANT WOMEN
 MARITAL RAPE
 WIFE’S 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.”

Findings
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.”

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

INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW SURVEYS
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?”

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

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.

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.”

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

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 women’s 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

Participatory List & Rank and Strategy Diagram
List & Rank : Common tool to identify specific types of sexual violence that are common in a community
Strategy 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

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

What are the types of sexual violence that women in your community face?
• Domestic Violence/Power
“I live alone too. I have only just my
• partner forcing sex (linked to daughter, and now I have my boyfriend. I have nobody. And, sometimes people alcoholism) really want to abuse you because you are alone.”
• mental abuse within the family
• intimidation by partner
• Child Sexual Abuse
“…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. Don’t do that.
For me now, it’s more better for me.”

• Comfortable participating, even in
English
• Liked talking about the subject – they don’t get to talk about this much, there aren’t many people you can trust
• Felt that this was the first step towards prevention
“…You feel that everybody has [some problem]. It’s small or big, it’s 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…”

Dangerous situations
(listing and ranking goes here)
What would you do first to prevent
______?
To whom or where could you go for help?
Overall, how can we stop this problem in your community?
How can we implement these strategies in your community?
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…”

• 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 it’s not going to happen the next month. Not the next year. This is going to take a very long time.”

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

• 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!... We’re women!
Thank God!”

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

•
Do immigrant women know about the services that are available?
•
For those who do know about the services and do not access them, why aren’t they?

Saturday, April 29 th
NYC West African Women’s 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

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 people’s 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

Kadiatou’s 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 doesn’t want to .
• [Kadiatou] has tried talking to him, and has put up with this situation for many years. She doesn’t know what to do.

a. Kadiatou decides to ask for help help-seeking behavior b. Kadiatou decides to do nothing c. Kadiatou decides to leave Bakary d. She asks someone to talk to Bakary knowledge & attitudes about services; service availability/accessibility intervention of others; help for men

Where does Kadiatou go to ask for help?
•
Other women
•
Someone who had a similar experience
• Husband’s 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 don’t know exactly ‘who’.”
Where should Bakary go for help?
“Bakary? Help? I don’t know, to be honest.”

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 qu’elle n’a 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], he’s gonna be mad…”
«Si elle n’a pas de parents ici, elle doit prendre ses responsabilités.
Moral responsibility to maintain family.
“Sometimes it’s 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 c’est lui qui t’a ramenée au US et il n’y a pas de solution parce qu’elle n’a pas de papiers. »

Realistic story and happens in their communities.
• “It happens daily. They don’t know what to do because they don’t have paper.
Because most of African women and men don’t 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 other’s ideas. We share ideas.”
• “I think it’s a good idea because in this country you don’t 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.

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

Of the 41 women we surveyed:
• 28 (68%) experienced sexual violence at some time
• 11 (27%) experienced child sexual violence (< 15 yrs. old)
• 21 (51%) experienced sexual violence as adult (> 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

• 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
…)

• 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.