The Impact of Domestic Violence on African Women Immigrants in the United Kingdom

Aims/Objectives of the Study

The impact of domestic violence on women migrated from Africa to United Kingdom.

• To explore the impact of domestic violence for women migrated from Africa to United Kingdom (UK).
• To investigate the main causes of domestic violence amongst immigrants in UK.

The study seeks to critically review the impact of domestic violence particularly for women migrated from Africa to United Kingdom (UK). It will further investigate the causes of domestic violence amongst UK immigrants and its impact in the upbringing of children. Literature from different researchers who have published books and articles about domestic violence will be assessed and critiqued. Their findings will be critiqued and synthesized into subjects. Culturally theory will be used as the foundation of the study and the work will be presented in the form of critical review. The findings will be distributed via publication in order to raise awareness on dangers of domestic violence in women and children immigrants in UK.

According to Okulu and Merkezi (2016) critically review is defined as “the summarization and evaluation of the ideas and information in an article”. Critical review it is unique from other review methods because it enables the writer to express his/her point of view based on what the writer already knows about the subject and what is learnt from related text. Reviewing critically, it means that one must think carefully and clearly and take into consideration the strength and weaknesses in the subject under review. 

The UK immigration policy is tied to whether the person desiring citizenship is married to his/her sponsor. This kind of policy it can lead to persons being trapped in violent relations therefore this makes women and children to be prone to domestic violence because they are caught in between, either to choose to be strong and stay quiet whilst are being about or to risk to lose papers which may result to someone being deported. Another dilemma is culturally beliefs, often the women come from cultures where they will suffer disgrace from their families if they abandon their marriage and return home, and so they prefer to stay married, therefore remaining locked in a cycle of abuse.

Researching around about the subject it has shown that there is limited literature, however existing literature has shown that domestic violence occurs in immigrant societies, and often there is little awareness in these communities of the laws and policies of the host country. According to McVeigh (2015) a study among first-generation South Asians in the UK found that they had little knowledge about what constituted criminal behavior under the English law. In her research she discovered that "There was certainly no awareness that there could be rape within a marriage". A study in Australia showed that among the immigrant women sampled who were abused by partners and did not report it, 16.7% did not know domestic violence was illegal, while 18.8% did not know that they could get protection from the government. Therefore this study is vital to be conducted so that it can bring light to the immigrants especially who migrated from Africa so that they get better understanding on how best one can deal with domestic violence in a foreign land and also the study will enlighten them on how the laws of host country can protect them from the perpetrators of domestic violence. 

Overview of the Study

Moreno and Heidi (2013) suggest that globally, the victims of domestic violence are overwhelmingly women, and women tend to experience more severe forms of violence. Therefore, this argument justify the need for more researchers about domestic violence, so that women are well equipped with the dangers of domestic violence and what are the possible solutions that can protect their lives from these perpetrators.

According to Schechter et al (2007) argues that children who live in a household with violence often show psychological problems from an early age, such as avoidance, hypervigilance to threats, and dysregulated aggression which may contribute to vicarious traumatization. Therefore the impacts of domestic violence are severe even to the children and it can affect them the rest of their lives, thus why this research is necessary so that its findings can be used to end domestic violence in African immigrants in the UK and enlighten them on other ways that can be used to address conflicts in household without activating violence and threats buttons.

The findings of this review will be applicable not only in women immigrants who are based in the UK but also other women who are migrated from their original country to another for different reasons. The research will be used by students, women and children who have interest in promoting the end domestic violence.

Since this proposal is for a literature-based dissertation, it will be conducted in the form of a critical review. Booth (2000) argues that this method necessitates the researcher to conduct a comprehensive but not necessarily truly systematic search of the literature. Therefore this research will conducted in a way of reviewing existing literature and by doing so it is an effort to cover the gaps which were left by those researchers therefore by reviewing existing literature, new perspectives which are viewed significant to the subject by the researcher shall be added. The strength of critical review lies in the requirement to undertake a critical evaluation and synthesis of the evidence; this allows an extensive overview of the strengths and weakness of the current knowledge base which in turn facilitates fresh interpretation and conclusions from the overall findings of the literature. According to United Nations Population Fund found violence against women and girls to be one of the most prevalent human rights violations worldwide, stating that "one in three women will experience physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime. Therefore, the critical review method will allow insight into this by permitting a broad exploration of a variety of evidence sources which have discussed domestic violence.

Background and Justification for the Study

Information for this review will be gathered from the articles and books that have written about this subject before. The legal articles that are related to subject will be also reviewed in order to understand how the judiciary of the UK deals with the cases of domestic violence especially when the victims who are not natives of the United Kingdom. Data will be also collected from news people articles or magazines that have reported about domestic violence, so that we have many articles to review so that the findings of the study is not biased. The Learning Centre catalogue will provide a further resource and will be searched for relevant material like articles which were published other researchers about the subject at hand. Reliable website sites like research gate will be visited for information which is relevant to the study. Archives will be also visited online so that we can understand the history of domestic violence amongst immigrants in the UK. Approaching institutions like police department which deals with domestic violence, that information can be useful in coming out with a balanced critical review study. All these sources will be used because the critical review method it demands for one to use different sources of information that are related to the study, therefore there is need to analyses those text or articles so that one knows both the strength and weakness as a result coming out with a balanced review.

In the interests of creating a brief synthesis of the literature, the application of sensible exclusion/inclusion criteria is essential. The research will use the article which were written before by other researchers and authors about the topic at hand. Articles which are already in the public domain are the ones which are going to be critiqued in an effort to bring out both strength and weakness of all articles that will be visited during the course of the research so that the findings at the end are not biased. The study will use any information published about the subject at hand.

This study will mainly be guided by cultural theory, which many scholars has interpreted it as the cognitive act or state in which a proposition is taken to be true. It will help the researcher in an effort to show the role played by culture in promoting domestic violence. Many scholars they agree that culture is dynamic but with test of time it is clear that that culture especially when it comes to domestic issues it appears to stagnant, because is it still used as a weapon to promote violence and oppressing women.

Summary of Method

Flood, et al (2009) argues that "Globally, wife-beating is seen as justified in some circumstances by a majority of the population in various countries, most commonly in situations of actual or suspected infidelity by wives or their "disobedience" toward a husband or partner." Therefore, this shows that culture has a serious influence in promoting domestic violence therefore this theory will make it possible to bring it to light on how the culture is used as a tool to facilitate domestic violence. Therefore, the fact that African culture it represents women as objects who are supposed to be submissive to their male counterparts, it’s a clear indication that culture promotes domestic violence direct and indirect, therefore cultural theory is the most appropriate theory to guide this study.

Cultural theory is still applicable in this era, which is evidenced by the traditional cultures, where  a woman dressing in attire considered inadequately modest can suffer serious violence at the hands of her husband or relatives, with such violent responses seen as appropriate by most of the society, which evidenced by the survey which was conducted by Monitoring the Situation of Women & Children in Afghanistan it discovered that 62.8% of women in Afghanistan said that a husband is justified in beating his wife if she wears inappropriate clothes. Therefore, this shows how African man and woman are so deep rooted to culture, which makes them to go abroad with their tendencies then resulting to domestic violence and they feel justified because of culture.

Therefore through this research will be guided by cultural theory, this theory was chosen because domestic violence is rooted to the culture of the societies, even in modern society culture is still playing the same role of promoting domestic violence by creating divisions on human beings based on sex and gender.

 In order to assess the individual suitability of articles for this critical review a decision will be made by the researcher based on applicability to the research objectives and research question. Published articles by scholars that have proven to be legit and unbiased will be used in this research provided their articles talks about domestic violence. To analyze data, these different articles by different scholars will be used on the basis of contrasting and comparing their divergent views concerning the topic, so that the findings are not biased. It should be noted that the initial scoping search has shown that the majority of the literature upon this topic is qualitative however this review will not limit itself to the use of qualitative literature only.

The results will be synthesized initially using a system of data extraction based upon thematic analysis.  According to Braun et al (2006) “thematic analysis is used in qualitative research and focuses on examining themes or patterns of meaning within data”. These scholars they suggest that it consists of six phases which are step 1: become familiar with the data, Step 2: Generate initial codes, Step 3: Search for themes, Step 4: Review themes, Step 5: Define themes, Step 6: Write-up.  Therefore, for one to successful use thematic analysis, he must include all six steps and this will enable the researcher to use the method to analyses themes and sub themes based upon the findings of the included evidence.

Riessman (1993) refers to narrative analysis as “a cluster of analytic methods for interpreting texts or visual data that have a storied form. A common assumption of narrative methods is that people tell stories to help organize and make sense of their lives and their storied accounts are functional, and purposeful”. Therefore, narrative synthesis will also be undertaken, this method it allows the effective review of a combination of literature types which makes it a good candidate to be used in this research. The data will be final analyses in order to compare and contrast the relationships between the studies and examine the variability in outcomes.

The combination of both thematic analysis and narrative analysis will enable the researcher to thoroughly critique the existing literature about the subject before giving his point of view about subject. These two will enable the researcher to analyse the article fully and be able to identify the weaknesses and strengths of the existing literature about the subject.

The review findings will be submitted to the project supervisor who will hand it over to the university officials. The review will also be distributed to colleagues via email so that they can understand the impact of domestic violence on women and children immigrants who are based in UK.