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Abstract

Programs and policies addressing gendered violence in impoverished rural areas in developing countries face a number of challenges: high rates of intimate partner violence, low reporting rates, cultural restrictions on women’s employment, lack of education and adequate health care, limited access to legal options and social services, and corruption in the criminal justice system. In these social contexts, anonymity is low and patriarchal notions of gender are especially persistent. In some areas, there are no services specifically for victims of gendered violence and shelters are in urban centers, far away from family and friends. Even where legal interventions are available, the outcomes often favor the perpetrators, making this option less attractive and in some cases dangerous. Because of these barriers, victims of intimate partner violence in rural settings rely more often on informal or community networks of support rather than formal authorities and legal sanctions to stop the violence. Consequently, addressing intimate partner violence in rural areas in developing countries requires more than a criminal justice response; it requires empowering rural women economically and socially. This conceptual article describes one program that attempts to empower rural women and the implications for creating safe space for victims of violence in challenging contexts.

Keywords

case studies domestic violence empowerment international social work intimate partner violence

In low-income countries, victims of intimate partner violence face restricted choices about their own safety due to extreme poverty, cultural restrictions on women’s employment, lack of education and adequate health care, lack of knowledge about and limited access to legal options, and corruption in the criminal justice system (Garcia-Moreno, Jansen, Ellsberg, Heise, & Watts, 2006; Krug, Dahlberg, Mercy, Zwi, & Lozano, 2002; Naved & Persson, 2005; Schuler, Bates, & Islam, 2008). Women living in rural areas in low-income countries face additional barriers to safety from intimate violence, including limited access to social services and lack of knowledge about the dynamics of intimate partner violence among the few social services available (Sagot, 2005; UN Women, 2014). In addition, rural areas present challenges in responding to family violence: The lack of anonymity discourages reporting and less access to cash in agricultural communities, and the natural isolation exacerbates the difficulties of leaving an abusive relationship (Eastman, Bunch, Williams, & Carawan, 2007; Nicholson, 1998).

Because of these barriers, victims of intimate partner violence in rural settings rely more often on informal or community networks of support rather than formal authorities and legal sanctions to stop the violence or escape (Hamby, 2008; Naved & Persson, 2005; Salazar, Högberg, Valladares, & Öhman, 2012; Sayam & Khan, 2012; Schuler et al., 2008). Social services are less available in rural areas, so rural victims of intimate partner violence may not have access to institutional resources (M. C. Ellsberg, Winkvist, Peña, & Stenlund, 2001; Sagot, 2005; Salazar et al., 2012). Even when services are available, the challenges of charging someone with a criminal offense or reporting intimate partner violence to authorities (e.g., extensive waiting times, lack of resources, unsympathetic attitudes) may dissuade many victims from reporting at all (Sagot, 2005; Schuler et al., 2008; U.S. Department of State, 2009). In addition, women in rural areas often have less knowledge than their urban counterparts about legal options in response to intimate partner violence, or they may be more skeptical of the efficacy of involving authorities in responding to intimate partner violence (Naved & Persson, 2005; Schuler et al., 2008). In fact, victims often believe that reporting intimate partner violence to authorities will make them less safe because it will increase the likelihood of further violence and because legal authorities often favor the perpetrator (Sagot, 2005; Schuler et al., 2008). Moreover, the lack of economic resources for women in rural areas and the risk of losing custody of their children are significant barriers to leaving a violent relationship (Ruiz, 1999; Salazar et al., 2012; Schuler et al., 2008).

From a feminist perspective, this reliance on informal community for refuge from intimate partner violence is paradoxical since it is often the community that reinforces traditional notions of gender which underscore patterns of intimate violence (Fox-Genovese, 1991). Violence against women, in fact, is firmly planted in the gendered distribution of power, resources, and prerogatives (Fregoso & Bejarano, 2010; Price, 2012); it is manifested in the daily lives of rural women through limited access to opportunity structures and land acquisition, traditional gendered expectations, and a distant criminal justice system (Deere & Leon, 2001; Sagot, 2005). The challenges for social workers in these settings include empowerment of victims of intimate partner violence who have few economic resources, limited education, and minimal support from police or prosecutors.

This is a case study exploring how to create safe space for survivors of intimate violence in places with few resources, low anonymity, and a weak criminal justice response using as an example a women’s project in a small, rural community in Nicaragua. The article includes a review of the literature on seeking assistance for intimate partner violence in low-income countries and in Nicaragua, a description of the project and feedback from participants, and suggestions for practice and evaluation.

Finding Help for IPV in Rural Regions of Low-Income Countries

Addressing intimate partner violence in rural areas in low-income countries requires more than a criminal justice response; it requires community intervention (International Center for Research on Women [ICRW], 2002; Schuler et al., 2008). As a result, community-based programming is recommended because it helps to change community norms and beliefs about domestic violence, which ultimately supports women who experience domestic violence (ICRW, 2002; Schuler et al., 2008). The Pan American Health Organization recommends anti-violence programming that (a) changes social norms “that support or enable violence against women and children” and (b) educates the public about violence “as a public health, human rights, and economic development problem” (Bott, Guedes, Ruiz-Celis, & Mendoza, 2019, p. 6). Carrillo (1993) suggested implementing programs that enhance women’s understanding of their options and improve their skills in communication, management, self-defense, and in responding to gender-based violence. One response to femicide in Central American countries, for example, has been to train leaders in poor communities to work on gender equality and violence prevention through discussions with young men about masculinity (Prieto-Carrón, Thomson, & Macdonald, 2007).

Community-based programs may be especially appropriate in rural areas. Educational programming that helps women understand gendered violence and the social construction of gender have been suggested in collaboration with microcredit educational programs¹ (Hughes, Bolis, Fries, & Finigan, 2015). In one such project in Mexico, for example, the educator found that when women were given choices about what type of violence to discuss (hunger, economic, physical), they most often wanted to discuss intimate violence because there was nowhere else they could do that.

There is not much to discover about being poor. But as women look at what it means to be women (poor women), they gain the desire to live, learn to express themselves, they see how they are reproducing sexual roles in their children. They discover the causes of their oppression and are empowered to act (Carrillo, 1993, p. 113).

Nicaragua and the Response to Intimate Partner Violence

The World Health Organization (2013) reports that over one third of women around the world and 30% of women in the Americas have experienced intimate partner violence. Estimates of intimate partner violence in Nicaragua range from 22.5% to 70% of the adult female population (Bott et al., 2019; M. C. Ellsberg, Pena, Herrera, Liljestrand, & Winkvist, 1999; U.S. Department of State, 2009). Among women who have ever been married or cohabitated, over half have been physically abused by a partner (current or former) in their lifetime (M. Ellsberg, Pena, Herrera, Liljestrand, & Winkvist, 2000; M. C. Ellsberg et al., 1999), and one of four women who currently have a partner said they had experienced physical abuse by a partner (Flake & Forste, 2006). Official annual estimates range from 2,943 reports of domestic violence recorded by the Nicaraguan National Police to 11,313 cases noted by the Institute of Forensic Medicine (both of these figures are cited in a report by the U.S. Department of State, 2009). But it is acknowledged in most reports that victims of intimate partner violence rarely notify the police, although victims may respond positively to inquiries about abuse in health-care settings (Salazar et al., 2012).

The characteristics of intimate partner violence are well-documented. Women in abusive relationships described their husbands as alcoholic, controlling, and extremely jealous, beginning by the second year of marriage (M. Ellsberg et al., 2000). The most common acts of violence, which typically occurred in private, included pushing, punching, kicking, slapping, throwing objects, and verbal and emotional abuse; the majority of abused women did not seek assistance (M. Ellsberg et al., 2000). Among a sample of women from León, physical abuse by an intimate partner was the most significant predictor of emotional distress (M. Ellsberg, Caldera, Herrera, Anna Winkvist, & Kullgren, 1999). Married women with abuse experiences were more likely than other married women in Nicaragua to be living in poverty, to have more children, and to report intimate partner abuse in their families of origin or their partner’s family; separation from the violent partner may happen depending on the age of the woman, the severity of the violence, and whether or not children are targeted for abuse (M. C. Ellsberg et al., 2001; Morrison & Orlando, 1999). Children of abused women were more likely than children of nonabused women to experience abuse themselves and to have emotional, behavioral, or learning problems (M. Ellsberg et al., 2000).

Studies in Latin American countries suggest that vulnerability to violence in an intimate relationship increases when women are single and cohabiting with a partner, when women are more educated than their partner, when the husband is emotionally unstable, frequently jealous and controlling, when the partner drinks excessively, and when the relationship is nonegalitarian in terms of decision-making (Flake & Forste, 2006; Mayorga, 2012). Women are less likely to experience intimate partner violence when the husband is able to resolve conflict verbally, when women own land, and when they take part in NGO-sponsored activities aimed at empowerment; the latter two variables were related to less traditional gender beliefs,² which were linked to women having more power in the context of their relationships (Grabe, 2010; Panda et al., 2006).

The Women’s Movement in Nicaragua

In the late 1970s, the first women’s political organizations were formed in Nicaragua to address concerns consistent with the traditional emphasis on women’s roles as mothers, known as “marianismo” (Seitz, 1994). During the Somoza regime (1936–1979)³ women in Nicaragua were expected to stay home and care for children, but because of the extreme levels of poverty, women were often heads of households while men left the community to find work; thus, women worked outside the home out of economic necessity (Angel & Macintosh, 1987). In fact, the reality of women’s need to work set the stage for later demands for gender equality (Seitz, 1994). In addition, women took an active role in the Sandinista revolution (1962–1979)⁴ including both military and support roles (Angel & Macintosh, 1987). Initially, the Sandinista National Liberation Front promoted gender equality and following the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 drastically reduced the illiteracy rate among both males and females (Angel & Macintosh, 1987; Seitz, 1994). This was accomplished through a national literacy campaign in which young teachers, mostly women, were successfully deployed to offer literacy classes to the population, particularly focusing on the rural areas (Arnove & Dewees, 1991). By the early 1980s, over 400,000 Nicaraguans had learned the fundamentals of reading and writing, and there was increased demand for more educational opportunities. This was consistent with the agenda of the Sandinista government, which wanted to use education as a tool to raise political consciousness (Arnove & Dewees, 1991).

Often women’s political activism emerged out of concerns about the impact of the war, working conditions, public health, poverty, or domestic violence murders (femicides) (Escandón, 1994; Prieto-Carrón et al., 2007). The Nicaraguan Women’s Association, for example, worked under the new Sandanista government to mobilize women to strengthen the postwar economy (Chinchilla, 1994). The Association of Nicaraguan Women to Confront the National Problem (Asociación de Mujeres Ante el Problemática Nacional) made demands for gender equality that influenced the newly formed Sandanista government. Later, the Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women (AMNLAE) continued the work of the revolution through, among other things, education (Kampwirth, 2012). Women needed information about “their rights, their bodies, ways to improve their health, and to be offered a medium through which to develop themselves personally and in their common interests with other women” (Seitz, 1994, p. 207). AMNLAE offered workshops on family planning, childcare, and reproductive health so that women would be empowered to make healthy decisions and improve their lives (Seitz, 1994). Thus, although AMNLAE has been criticized for not challenging the structural inequality supported by the male-dominated government, the organization did contribute to Nicaraguan feminist history by providing workshops meant to educate and empower women (Kampwirth, 2010).

In 1983, the Oficina Legal de la Mujer was created to assist the president’s office in integrating gender into government planning, and this resulted in more public discussion of women’s status in society and the impact of violence against women (see Chinchilla, 1994). Subsequently, the Instituto Nicaraguense de la Mujer (Nicaraguan Women’s Institute) emerged in the late 1980s to coordinate research on women and inform government policy. These changes accompanied legislative reforms regarding gender equality (e.g., making men and women equally responsible for children) (Seitz, 1994), but many of these reforms were eliminated by the Chamorro administration (Kampwirth, 2010).

The Nicaraguan women’s movement, in fact, often split over how to best respond to the intersection of gender and the overwhelming poverty faced by the majority of women in the country as well as the anti-feminist agenda of the government in the 1990s (Chinchilla, 1994; Kampwirth, 2010). Drawing on the cultural image of “la madre” and the political campaign of Violeta Chamorro, a group composed of both Contra and Sandinista women formed the “Mother’s Committee.” This group received grants to provide housing for women in both groups and classes for the community, for example, vocational training or therapeutic workshops (Cupples, 2004). In the early 1990s, some feminist groups formed around specific issues, like violence against women, and tried to operate independent of political parties; others focused on networking and collaboration to achieve a set of feminist goals that included legal protections for victims of domestic violence, abortion rights, and civil rights for gay men and lesbians (M. Ellsberg, Liljestrand, & Winkvist, 1997; Kampwirth, 2010). During this time, several organizations offered training and education on women’s legal rights, lobbied for legislation to address violence against women, and provided services for battered women. The 1992 National Conference for Women resulted in a network of organizations working on violence against women, including the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Network against Domestic and Sexual Violence and the Nicaraguan Network of Women against Violence (Kampwirth, 2012).

Throughout the 1990s, Nicaragua made substantial progress in responding to violence against women with an increased number of female police officers and more training for the police on responding to violence against women, but legal reform was needed (Kampwirth, 2012; U.S. Department of State, 2009). On January 27, 2012, Ley 779, the Ley Contra Violencia Hacia las Mujeres (Law against Violence Towards Women) was passed by the Nicaraguan Parliament, recognizing that violence against women is a human rights violation: “Violence against women constitutes a violation of fundamental freedoms limiting totally or partially the recognition, enjoyment and exercise of human rights” (Ley Contra Violencia Hacia las Mujeres, 2012). On paper, the law increased the penalties for violent crimes against women, including physical, psychological, sexual, and economic violence; it called for the establishment of domestic violence courts and improving the treatment of victims by the justice system (Ley Contra Violencia Hacia las Mujeres, 2012). But immediately after the passage, the government, heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, began the process of watering down the impact of the law. For example, the law was revised in 2013 to include mediation in cases of intimate partner violence despite the objection of women’s rights’ groups (Solís, 2013). In addition, feminists point out that 779 has not received the financial support from the government to be properly implemented.

Despite the passage of the law, there are still substantial barriers to addressing violence against women, particularly in rural Nicaragua. Schweizer (2011) argues that criminal justice solutions to family violence in many countries in Latin America are inadequate because of cultural barriers to the integration of women’s issues into the response; he does suggest that gender-sensitive training for police and more emphasis on education and prevention would be helpful, but there are still critical questions about the adequacy of the criminal justice response to family violence and the effectiveness of implementation of the new law. In the past, some components of the criminal justice system, including police and judges, have been accused of corruption and are the subject of numerous complaints, particularly in cases involving family violence (U.S. Department of State, 2009). In fact, the current president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, has been accused of sexually abusing his stepdaughter, a charge that did not prevent him from winning reelection (Margolis, 2013). Moreover, the transformation of the criminal justice system to be in compliance with the new law will take time, and that transformation faces the resistance of patriarchal traditions and religious objection (Witte, 2013).

In rural areas, where women are less likely to report intimate partner violence to authorities, and where the poverty rate and unemployment are higher than in urban areas (M. C. Ellsberg et al., 2001; Rural Poverty Portal, 2012), the implementation of the law is even more challenging. The United Nations acknowledges that there are places where violence against women is not well-documented, and legislation does not adequately protect women from violence; it is recommended that programming, whether educational or service-driven, be developed in response to the unique needs of the community (UN Women, 2010).

Consistent with these recommendations and past efforts by Nicaraguan feminists, the women’s project was undertaken in one small community just outside of León to offer women education about domestic violence, their rights under the new law, and the connections to gender and social justice. The description of the project comes from the facilitators’ reports and observations; therefore, it is not based on empirical evidence. The patterns they record, however, suggest a larger need to evaluate these efforts to establish best practices for creating safe space for survivors of intimate partner violence in rural, low-resource areas.

Description of Project for the Women of Goyena

The community of Goyena, Nicaragua, is located in Sutiava, a rural region west of León. Currently, over 250 families live in Goyena, although about 100 individuals live in the central area of the village. Goyena is surrounded by sugarcane fields owned by a multinational corporation, the only local employment option and, as in other parts of Nicaragua, a source of serious health problems among the workers (Wei, 2015). The majority of the population (65%) are women and girls aged 13–65 years because adult males often leave the country to search for work (ViviendasLeón, 2015). Life expectancy in Goyena is 55 years old, which is well below the national average of 75 (World Bank, 2015). In Nicaragua, 68% of the rural population is living in poverty (World Bank, 2015), and Goyena, with the absence of industry and viable employment options, is no different. Within that context, intimate partner violence is rarely documented or reported but is at least as common as estimates from León (Ellsberg, Pena, Herrera, Liljestrand, & Winkvist, 1999).

The women’s project (Proyecto Mujeres) was a grant-funded program to “provide legal and social knowledge” to the women of Goyena to facilitate their “access to justice and asserting their right to gender equality” (Vanegas, 2012, p. 2). It was developed in the shadow of the new law in Nicaragua (Ley 779), which criminalized violence against women. To raise awareness and ensure access to legal options, the women of Goyena were invited to participate in a year-long series of workshops that included information about Law 779 and discussions on the social construction of gender, self-esteem, and social justice. Led by a social worker and an attorney, who are both active in the feminist movement in Nicaragua, the workshops were meant to encourage women to talk about violence in their relationships on the premise that this would gradually impact the wider community; the workshops would also educate women about their rights under the new law, and the facilitators hoped this would reduce violence but also offer women resources they needed to escape violence and live more equitably (Vanegas, 2012).

The Workshops

The board of directors of Goyena wanted to provide residents with information about their legal rights under the new law. A small grant was provided by the New Haven/León Sister City project, and Goyena board members went door to door inviting both male and female adults to participate in the workshops, which ran from February 24, 2012, to December 13, 2012. Initially, 30 women and one man from Goyena agreed to participate, but 16 women attended for the full year.⁵ The group met on average twice a month for two-hour workshops, a total of 34 times, covering 24 topics related to domestic violence, gender, self-esteem, and empowerment. Workshops were held in a communal, open-air space in Goyena that allowed for both discussion and activities. The workshops are described in two accounts written as progress reports to the granting agency and an interview with one of the facilitators.

The women who attended the workshops ranged in age from 16 to 60 years old. All of them were in relationships with men, although most were unmarried. Like most other women in Goyena, many of the women worked in the sugarcane fields 6 months of the year; others sold fruit and vegetables in León, and some worked at home.

Every workshop began with a reminder that this must be a safe place to share information. The facilitator asked participants to respect each other and to keep personal disclosures within the group; however, no one was required to talk about their personal life.

The focus of the workshops revolved around several feminist topics such as the social construction of gender, intimate partner violence, women’s self-esteem, civil rights under the new law, a woman’s right to education and work, and reproductive health and rights. For example, two workshops began with a discussion about the meaning of violence in the home, the role of “machismo” in that violence, and the consequences. The facilitator asked the group what “machismo” meant to them and then guided the discussion using their definitions as well as a definition she provided. Another workshop included an attorney discussing the new law, Ley 779, its implications, and how to utilize the criminal justice system. The participants were given the chance to ask questions about the law and to clarify their rights. The workshops were interspersed with trips to León to participate in larger discussions and demonstrations regarding women’s rights. In March 2012, for example, participants attended an International Women’s Day march in León, and the next workshop began with a discussion of the reactions they had to what they had seen and heard there. In the last 3 months of the program, topics more broadly related to women’s rights (e.g., abortion, sexual rights, self-esteem, and health matters) were interspersed with discussions about specific types of violence (e.g., sexual violence and exploitation).

Some meetings were dedicated to Theater of the Oppressed, which aimed to bring to light violence against women in Goyena using their own stories to create messages about the nature of power and oppression (Boal, 1985). For example, in one workshop, the facilitator divided the women into smaller groups and asked them to come up with an example of oppression in their own lives. Then, each group was asked to illustrate the example as if they were silent group statues. One group, for example, illustrated the true story of one woman: as a teenager, her father died, and because she was a girl, she was required to quit school and go to work so that her brothers could continue their education. The group illustrated this silently with a table and one empty chair, and the facilitator asked the larger group to guess what this represented. Once the story was revealed, the facilitator asked the group to make suggestions to make the situation better, and the “actors” moved around accordingly to illustrate the solution. The middle-aged woman whose story had been told wiped tears away and said to everyone, “I loved school. I really wanted to keep going.” In this way, the facilitator was able to link the concept of structural oppression based on gender to the personal lives of women in rural Nicaragua.

The facilitators continuously asked for reactions and feedback, and some of these reactions are recorded in the two reports. Some workshops, in fact, were devoted to reactions to the material that was presented. In the final meeting, the facilitator asked participants what they had learned from the workshops, and the recorded comments included changed attitudes about gender and about the violence they had experienced. These observations were not collected systematically for the purpose of program evaluation but for the objective of reporting back to the funding agency and continuing the workshops with participant feedback.

Nevertheless, the report offers some insight into the potential impact of community-based programming for rural women in the context of low-income countries. Most of the women who stayed for the entire year of programming spoke about the positive effect of the workshops, including a change in their own attitudes about intimate violence. They pointed out that when they began the workshops, they thought that violence in a relationship was normative, and they did not discuss it with anyone. By the end of the workshops, participants recognized that “they had already suffered psychological, economic, or physical violence, and they were not ashamed to say it.” The participants who gave feedback also pointed out that they were talking more openly with their families about violence, noting changes in attitudes of spouses and other relatives. One participant said, “Mi marido ya no me calla, ahora yo expreso lo que siento y el ya me esta escuchando” (“My husband does not yell at me; now I express how I feel, and he is listening to me”).

The report also notes changes in the community from one in which intimate partner violence was a private matter to one in which the need for shelter from violence was acknowledged. For example, in the third workshop, the facilitator asked participants about the violence in their community, and she summarized the response:

In our community, we experience all kinds of violence, almost all of us are abused and suffer psychological and verbal abuse by some member of our family or our community. We don’t like to get involved in the family problems of other people since, if we do, we are no longer friends, as couples almost always reconcile (Vanegas, 2012, p. 5).

At the end of the year, the facilitator noted that these same participants recognized the need for shelter from intimate violence and social support for victims: “Cuando nos enteramos de un caso de violencia hacia una mujer le damos apoyo y la sensibilizamos sobre los riesgo que corre” (“When they encounter a case of violence towards a woman, they give her support and make her aware of the risk she runs”). One woman, in fact, even offered shelter in her own home to any woman who needed refuge.

While these observations are not based in empirical methodology, they do hint at some remarkable changes in a small, rural village in Nicaragua. This type of programming provides community-based education, social support, and empowerment for women who would otherwise have to depend on a distant law enforcement response to acts of violence only recently criminalized. Moreover, this type of programming offers a response to feminist concerns about informal communities reinforcing traditional constructions of gender while serving as the main source of shelter and support for victims of intimate partner violence in rural areas in low-income countries.

The women’s project also suggests some practical strategies for social workers in rural communities in low-income countries. First, the social worker in Goyena found ways to blend interpersonal discussions with education about gender status in Nicaragua for women who knew each other and viewed intimate partner violence as a normative part of marriage. One of the main challenges of conducting workshops in such a small community is the lack of anonymity. The groups were conducted in an open-air, communal space with relatively little privacy, so it would have been well known who was participating in the group. Moreover, a victim of intimate partner violence could easily be sitting next to a relative of her husband, exacerbating the difficulty of disclosure. Because of this, the facilitator frequently introduced trust-building exercises and mingled discussions about civil rights with the creativity of Theater of the Oppressed. She arranged for the participants to go to León for International Women’s Day, linking their experiences with gender and violence to the larger movement to dismantle patriarchy. In this way, she was able to frequently link structural violence and interpersonal violence while empowering women to advocate for change on both the national and the local level. Given the obstacles to obtaining help for rural victims of intimate partner violence in low-income countries, this approach offers the possibility of creating a space for safe disclosure of victimization experiences in a place where victims do not usually disclose to each other, much less to authorities.

For social workers in low-income countries, the challenge of bringing a criminal justice response to intimate partner violence in rural areas may be familiar. This type of programming is unique in that the goal was to create safe space in a rural village so that victims of intimate partner violence could disclose to each other but also envision and enact their own responses to structural and interpersonal violence. It was particularly appropriate for women living in a rural village because participants did not have to travel to receive services. Moreover, there were varying levels of literacy among the women, and the workshops were set up so that all could participate. In other words, the second strategy successfully used by the social worker was that rather than bringing to the population a predetermined program, she catered the program to the population.

This type of programming also speaks to the challenge for Nicaraguan feminists concerned with the implementation of Ley 779 in rural areas. Without pressure from women’s groups, it is doubtful that the Nicaraguan criminal justice system will fulfill the promise of Ley 779 to end intimate partner violence through arrest and prosecution. This demonstration project suggests that in addition to working to improve the response of the state to violence against women, feminist social workers may also need to focus on changing communities through survivors and their allies. In terms of social work practice, this third strategic recommendation is that educational programming be used to stimulate the development of community networks to provide support for women dealing with intimate partner violence (e.g., shelter, emotional support) or to support rural women who wish to live independently.

There are several possibilities for research in Goyena and similar settings. First, the grant report notes that everyone had the chance to express themselves, but according to the social worker who took notes at the feedback sessions,⁶ “the most extroverted stood out among the participants” (Vanegas, 2012, p. 8). Perhaps those women who are more participatory are also those who are better able to incorporate the information into their daily lives, while those who are unable to do this, for any variety of reasons, may feel less comfortable discussing their experiences in this setting. Moreover, the positive feedback from the workshops could be indicators that participants did not want to disclose negative experiences or comments to the facilitators out of a “social desirability” concern; on the other hand, they could also be indicators of an educational experience that is transformative and meaningful. Without further probing interviews, either interpretation is possible. Second, almost half of the original participants dropped out of the group, and their perspectives are not included here. Those who did not participate may have especially conservative views of gender prescriptions or uncritical views of normative violence. For example, one woman who came to the first meeting but did not attend the workshops said to the facilitator: “I don’t really need this workshop; my husband hits me the normal amount.” It is also possible that the least vulnerable women were able to complete the workshops, while the most vulnerable women either chose to or were compelled to drop out of the group. Therefore, future research should include interviews with participants and nonparticipants about their experiences of intimate partner violence, attitudes about gender and violence, and their understanding of the law and their civil rights.

Moreover, there is clearly a need for more systematic evaluation to document the impact of the programming. The observations of the facilitator are interesting and encouraging, but the project would benefit from a broader range of perspectives on the impact of the workshops, a more systematic collection of data, and empowerment of facilitators to carry out evaluations as a routine part of the educational process. This would not only help to establish what the impact of the workshops is on the participants but also to support the facilitators as they try to understand what types of programming are most effective.

Evaluation under these circumstances, however, is challenging. The sample size is small (as is the size of the population), and resources and personnel are limited. Ideally, participants should be surveyed or interviewed by trained personnel outside the project, but this would require additional funding. Pre- and posttests are possible but may not offer sufficient information because of the small sample size and because the true impact may unfold or dissipate over time, something not captured in cross-sectional interviews. It is also important to understand (a) how local culture is incorporated into community solutions for intimate partner violence in the absence of effective criminal justice solutions and (b) the impact of the more predominant reliance on social networks. Traditional methods for evaluation may miss these components in standardized, outcome-oriented research.

Given these challenges and the clear need for more research on innovative programming to combat violence against women in rural regions of low-income countries (Grabe, 2010; Krantz & Garcia-Moreno, 2005; Moore & Smith, 2008; U.S. Agency for International Development, 2010), the evaluation of the women’s project should include procedures for empowerment and participatory evaluation consistent with the sistemización model (Tapella & Rodríguez-Bilella, 2014). Given their intimate knowledge of the project and local culture, the facilitators are, in fact, key to any evaluation efforts. Empowerment evaluation is designed “to help program participants evaluate themselves and their program to improve practice and foster self-determination” (Fetterman, 1996, p. 4). The sistemización model focuses on a process of self-reflection that highlights “lessons learned” and “patterns that help or hinder change” (Tapella & Rodríguez-Bilella, 2014, p. 120). The process of self-reflection would offer facilitators guidance for establishing best practices for educational programming on intimate partner violence in rural, low-resource communities (see Moore & Smith, 2008). In addition, evaluation efforts should coincide with or enhance the efforts of the facilitators to empower the participants. The evaluation should be set up so that the organization can monitor its own progress and learn from each set of workshops. Moreover, the evaluation should include a set of follow-up interviews with participants who completed the workshops as well as an attempt to reach those who did not.

Conclusions

Gender-based violence in rural areas of low-income countries remains unchecked relative to violence in urban areas. Law enforcement can be sensitized, but even in this context, rural areas present significant challenges to stopping intimate partner violence, given the low reporting rate, the distrust of police, the distances victims must travel to reach a shelter or the courts, and the substantial economic barriers to women living independently. Rural areas may, in fact, require more community interventions to find ways to take advantage of the characteristics of rural villages to address and prevent gender-based violence rather than wait for it to happen and respond with an urban-based criminal justice approach (see Schuler et al., 2008).

Despite the limitations and challenges of this program for the women of Goyena, the possibilities are intriguing. This type of community-based, educational programming may be a model for changing norms in small communities where anonymity is low and the criminal justice response to intimate partner violence is weak. Evaluation studies typically involve larger samples for statistical validity, but these smaller communities are operating under a different social context that includes greater unemployment and poverty as well as closer ties to the community. There is a clear need for evaluation based in smaller pockets of the population, and the results may help the women’s project to expand and continue as an instigator of social change.

Footnotes

Acknowledgment

The author would like to acknowledge Erendira Vanegas and Maria Gargiulo for their work on this project and their early commentary on this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Lori K. Sudderth

Notes

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The Women’s Project: Educating Women in Rural Nicaragua About Gender and Violence

Abstract

Keywords

Finding Help for IPV in Rural Regions of Low-Income Countries

Nicaragua and the Response to Intimate Partner Violence

The Women’s Movement in Nicaragua

Description of Project for the Women of Goyena

The Workshops

Conclusions

Footnotes

Acknowledgment

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

References