Anoosh Franklin

Researcher Anoosh Franklin has been handing out fliers, searching for South Asian women that have experienced domestic violence.

South Asian women who have experienced domestic violence are being "under reported" and "under represented," says an Auckland researcher.

Clinical Psychology Doctoral Candidate Anoosh Franklin says the "problem is more than meets the eye." She hopes to shed some light on the issue with her research.

Franklin, 26, is researching South Asian women's experiences with intimate partner violence perpetrated by South Asian males in New Zealand.

South Asian refers to women from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Nepal, as well as Fiji Indians.

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Franklin says there's hardly any research on the issue and statistical inconsistencies are one reason why.

"There's a lot of inconsistency on how we determine different ethnic groups in our research," she said.

"In some statistics, Asian and Indians will be in separate groups, and in other statistics they'll all be lumped together under Asian," said Franklin.

"There's a lot of criticism in the research about doing that because it's such a diverse group.

"A lot of people mark their ethnicity as unknown or other, and it's really hard to get a sense of how big the problem is."

Franklin says cultural beliefs are also a factor.

"Asian women have really strong beliefs about domestic violence being a private matter and are therefore less likely to disclose family violence," she said.

According to the New Zealand Crime and Safety Survey, 76 per cent of family violence incidents are not reported to the police.

Franklin says the problem is bigger than shown in most research and conversations with others in the community are already proving this.

"Preliminary conversations with the community revealed that lots of people know families where this is happening," she said. "I can certainly say that this has been my experience, too."

Franklin's research will focus on what particular challenges are faced by South Asian women, identifying what help they've received that has been valuable to them and the importance of culture in responding to this issue.

Franklin says South Asian women don't necessarily experience more abuse than other women, but there is an issue of their experiences of abuse being embedded within their culture.

Franklin says she's been struck by the response so far.

"These women are so eager to tell their stories to help other women," she said.

"It's not easy talking about traumatic experiences and some of them are struggling with settling things in court and navigating single parenthood.

"I think it's really important to recognise their resilience and generosity," said Franklin.

Between 2009 and 2015, there were 92 intimate partner violence deaths. In 98 per cent of death events where there was a recorded history of abuse, women were the primary victim.

One in three women experience physical and/or sexual violence from a partner during their lifetime.

If you are a South Asian woman who as experienced domestic violence in New Zealand and would like to participate in Franklin's research you can contact her at afra128@aucklanduni.ac.nz 
 

 - Stuff