Help-Seeking Pathways and Barriers for ... - EngenderHealth

She is a just a human being and she feels that talking about it will degrade her
humanity. She better keep it her secret.
Duty Bearer, Mbeya
Fear of social consequences
Another socio-cultural barrier that was common across help-seeking pathways was a fear of
the social consequences that result from reporting spousal abuse to the authorities. In
particular, they fear that reporting abuse will lead to divorce, which will leave the woman
without any financial support.
That is a challenge because when women experience GBV they are afraid to report their
husbands to the police because doing that will break the marriage totally and sometimes
you might find that a woman has no income so they think of where they will go after the
marriage breaks up.
Service provider, Iringa
Inherent in this fear is the additional concern that being a divorced woman will render her
an undesirable partner for other prospective husbands. Similarly, women are concerned that
their reporting of an incident will escalate the problem and even leave their husbands jailed.
…In wife-husband cases, if the local police arrest the offender, that might create even a
bigger problem in their marriage. The husband might be arrested and confined in a jail
cell while you could have solved the problem just by a simple discussion.
Service Provider, Iringa
Some are afraid to go the police for fear that the assaulting partner may possibly be
jailed, and some think that going to the police is useless because nothing will be done
anyway.
Service Provider, Mbeya
It is also important to highlight the latter part of the above quote, which illustrates a very
common perception that the system is not built to respond to the needs of women who
experience GBV. The structural barriers to help-seeking will now discussed in sub-section 2
below.
Help-Seeking Pathways and Barriers for Survivors of GBV in Tanzania March 2013
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