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The Issue: Domestic and family violence is a human rights and public health issue. This violence is more frequently experienced by women and is commonly perpetuated by an intimate partner. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the prevalence of a range of issues, including domestic and family violence, specifically amongst culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Migrant and refugee women have been particularly vulnerable.

Project summary: SHAKTI is exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic and isolation measures during this time, impacted on the experiences of family and domestic violence amongst migrant and refugee women. The research team will co-design a culturally safe, self-help and safety program alongside community partners and participants in order to support migrant and refugee women experiencing family and domestic violence.

Relevance for practice and policy: SHAKTI aims to support culturally and linguistically diverse women by providing them with opportunities to build safe support networks and to provide a space where their voices and experiences can be heard and documented.

Who is involved?

Chief Investigator: Jaya Dantas

Project Team: Professor Donna Chung, Dr Jonathan Hallett, Professor Sender Dovchin, Dr Carol Kaplanian, Zakia Jeemi, Georgia Griffin, Azriel Lo, Hana Byanbadash, Anusri Banerjee, Erin Mitchell

Partner community agencies: Ishar, United in Diversity, Vic Park Psychology, Zonta, Communicare

Project Funding: Healthway Intervention Grant

Project website: https://www.shakti-project.com.au/

Project progress: In progress.

Program outputs:

There have been several presentations of Phase 1 of the project to:

Communicare
City of Stirling
FIAWA – Federation of Indian Associations of WA.

There has been pilot testing through Phase 2 of the project with:

United in Diversity
Communicare

There has been 1 publication:

1) Lo, A., Griffin, G., Byambadash, H., Mitchell, E., & Dantas, J. A. R. (2025). “Stuck Due to COVID”: Applying the Power and Control Model to Migrant and Refugee Women’s Experiences of Family Domestic Violence in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 22(4), 627. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph22040627

Further outputs will be delivered later in 2024