Faculty of Population Health Sciences, Institute for Global Health, University College London, London, UK
Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action (SNEHA), Mumbai, India.
BMJ Glob Health. 2023 Jan;8(1). doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011304.
Transforming communities into supportive environments for women facing risks of violence requires community members to play an active role in addressing violence against women (VAW). We did a grounded theory study of enablers and barriers to community response to ongoing violence, sampling from programme areas of a non-governmental organisation (NGO)-led community mobilisation intervention in informal settlements in Mumbai, India. We held 27 focus group discussions and 31 semistructured interviews with 113 community members and 9 NGO staff, along with over 170 hours of field observation. We found that residents responded to violence in diverse ways, ranging from suicide prevention to couple mediation to police and NGO referral. Enabling and constraining factors fit into a social ecological model containing intrapersonal, immediate social network, and wider societal levels. We identified four themes interlinking factors: legitimacy of action, collective power, protection against risk and informal leadership. Legitimacy of action was negotiated in the context of individual disputes, making community members question not only whether VAW was 'wrong', but was 'wrong' in specific disputes. Collective power through neighbourhood solidarity was key to action but could be curtailed by violent gang crime. Interveners in incidents of VAW turned out to need significant physical, social and legal protection against reprisal. However, repeat interveners could become informal leaders wielding influential prosocial reputations that incentivised and facilitated action. Our model integrates multiple perspectives on community action into one analytical framework, which can be used by implementers to ensure that community members receive encouragement, support and protection to act.
将社区转变为支持面临暴力风险的妇女的环境，需要社区成员在解决暴力侵害妇女行为方面发挥积极作用。我们对非政府组织（NGO）领导的社区动员干预在印度孟买非正规住区的持续暴力的社区应对的促进因素和障碍进行了扎根理论研究。我们对 113 名社区成员和 9 名 NGO 工作人员进行了 27 次焦点小组讨论和 31 次半结构化访谈，以及 170 多个小时的实地观察。我们发现，居民以各种方式对暴力做出反应，从预防自杀到夫妻调解，再到向警察和 NGO 转介。促进因素和制约因素符合包含个人、直接社交网络和更广泛社会层面的社会生态模型。我们确定了四个相互关联的主题：行动的合法性、集体权力、风险保护和非正式领导。行动的合法性是在个人纠纷的背景下进行协商的，这使得社区成员不仅质疑暴力侵害妇女行为是否“错误”，而且在特定纠纷中是否“错误”。通过邻里团结的集体权力是行动的关键，但可能会被暴力团伙犯罪所削弱。暴力侵害妇女行为事件的干预者实际上需要得到重大的身体、社会和法律保护，以防止报复。然而，重复干预者可以成为行使有影响力的亲社会声誉的非正式领导人，激励和促进行动。我们的模型将社区行动的多个视角整合到一个分析框架中，实施者可以使用该框架确保社区成员得到鼓励、支持和保护来采取行动。
