Stay-leave decision making in battered women in Cochabamba, Bolivia

This explorative psychological investigation has been planned and will be realized in collaboration with the Legal Office for Women (Oficina Jurídica para la Mujer) and the University in Cochabamba. The main focus will be on migrant women from the rural areas living in the outskirts of the city. The most important aims for the planned investigation include: 1) to investigate how migrant women in Cochabamba cope with violence, and 2) to identify the factors influencing the decision to leave their violent partner or to stop violence in their relationship.
In Bolivia, the political instability of the last decades has provoked social unrest, unemployment and high rates of migration from the rural areas to cities (urbanization). In other studies, migration has found to be related to high rates of domestic violence. People lose their social network and often live in isolation and poverty. Partner relationships are influenced by high emotional distress and strong interdependency. In Bolivia, these circumstances are combined with strong ingrained machismo ethics and well defined gender roles. Many women have learned not to react to violence in their lives and stay passive, tolerant, and fearful.
In the Legal Office, women who suffer partner violence get legal information and psychological attendance. One major problem is the high rate of women dropping out during the intervention process. After seeking help in moments of crisis they often disappear to go back to their violent husbands. By identifying the most important factors that influence the decision-making process, more specific psychological intervention programs can be realized in order to support help-seeking women. However, in this study, separation is not supposed to be the only solution for battered women. Reduction or disappearance of violence in the relationship are as well seen as positive changes.
Taking into account the stages during the process of leaving a violent partner or stopping the violence, participants will be interviewed at three different times within a time period of six months. The measured variables are: extent of victimization, socioeconomic status, gender-role attitudes, depression, cognitions and attributions about violence and incongruence in basic needs. These variables have been collocated within a mediator-model, which has been developed for this investigation:
Violence is considered to be related to incongruence in basic psychological needs, which are: the need for control; the need for increasing pleasure and avoiding pain; the need for attachment; and the need to increase self-esteem. The incongruence in basic needs results in high emotional tension, which can be reduced by cognitions about violence that disfigure reality. These cognitive strategies have a self-destructive effect preventing women from perceiving their partner and their relationship adequately. Therefore, we see them as a mediator variable between incongruence and the stay-leave decision: If internal tension can be reduced successfully, women will stay in the violent relationship. Women will leave the violent relationship or try to stop violence at the point where they don’t succeed any more in reducing the internal tension by disfiguring reality.
Cognitive strategies are not supposed to be the only factor influencing the stay-leave decision: Socioeconomic status and traditional gender-roles attitudes are viewed as independent factors influencing the decision-making process. Comparing migrant women with women born in Cochabamba, we expect the former to have less external resources and show more traditional gender-roles attitudes, preventing them from leaving their violent partner or stopping the violence in their relationship.

For further information please contact:

Eva Maria Heim
E-mail: evaheim@gmx.ch

Oficina Jurídica para la Mujer
Calle Méjico 358
Casilla 2287
Cochabamba, Bolivia
E-mail: julietam@bo.net
ojmujer@adslmail.entelnet.bo