Help-Seeking and Barriers of Domestic Violence Survivors in Kyrgyzstan: A Grounded Theory Study

"Help-Seeking and Barriers of Domestic Violence Survivors in Kyrgyzstan: A Grounded Theory Study" by Saltanat Childress, PhD Candidate in Social Work at University of Maryland Baltimore

    When: Thursday, April 16 at 4:00pm

    Where: 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Dr., Madison, WI, 53706

    Sponsors: The Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia (CREECA)

About the Speaker:

Saltanat Childress is a PhD Candidate at the School of Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore and an Honorary Fellow at the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds her MSW from Washington University in St. Louis, Brown School of Social Work. Saltanat worked as a Program Coordinator for the international development programs funded by the USAID, Asian Development Bank, European Union, and other international organizations in Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere in Central Asia on issues of land tenure rights, community-based public health, social economic rehabilitation and empowerment of women. She has extensive experience in coordinating community-based programs and conducting intervention research, managing regional level public information campaigns, and liaising relations with local governments on behalf of the international development programs.

About the Lecture:

This talk explores the experiences of women with gender-based violence in Kyrgyzstan, their coping mechanisms, and barriers to help-seeking, using methods of qualitative research and grounded theory development. Several reports of international organizations have emphasized the scope of domestic violence in Kyrgyzstan, yet no study has attempted to examine the meaning of domestic violence from the perspective of the survivors. To address this gap, this study used a qualitative approach to explore the experiences of women survivors in order to better understand what initiatives could make social services, law enforcement, and public health systems more responsive to their needs. The experiences narrated by the women in this study emphasize the need for concerted multi-sectoral efforts to advance the safety and protection of women in Kyrgyzstan. More broadly, the findings highlight the wider societal issues that must be addressed in Kyrgyzstan to combat the problem of gender-based violence and suggest a number of important areas for future theory, practice, and research.