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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

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

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.

Further outputs will be delivered later in 2024