Work

Access to Justice for Immigrant Women Facing Domestic Violence in Sweden

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Victimized immigrant women in Sweden encounter multifaceted barriers when seeking justice for intimate partner violence. Utilizing justice management from below as a methodological approach, this study adapts a two-fold model of challenges these women face in pursuit of justice. While action-based challenges, such as lack of legal awareness and access to language, isolation, insecure residency, and integration impede women from reporting incidents of domestic violence to the police; the process-based obstacles, including difficulties in proving violence and navigating legal proceedings and lack of trust in authorities hinder immigrant victimized women even after they have reported their cases. As a result, the majority of these women abandon their cases in the pursuit of justice. The findings of the study also underscore the importance of employing a bottom-up approach to understand the challenges faced by immigrant women who are victims of domestic violence within the Swedish justice system for access to justice.

Source: Social & Legal Studies

DOI: 10.1177/09646639251330499

Authors: Fatemeh Hamedanian, Reza Arjmand

Institution: Linnaeus University

Language: English

Topic: Intimate Partner and Family Violence

Subfield: Health

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Gender equality, Peace, justice, and strong institutions, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,650