ABSTRACT
Research into mapping pathways illuminates the various ways in which knowledge of South East Asian women’s lives are lacking and limitations in the responses of agency staff stemming from their organisations and remits. Mapping pathways explored in depth how agencies network and cooperate with each other when responding to requests for help from women with personal or family backgrounds from South East Asia. There were no standard situations or agencies involvement in the 30 interviews. Pathways were composed of varied experiences of violence, victimisation and agencies that became involved. Diagramming sequential mapping of agency contacts described progress from the fi rst to subsequent agencies in
the pursuit of help seeking. If referrals from one agency to another led to non-resolution of a woman’s problem, later on she would begin again with another agency and its referrals. Phases continued until women’s attempts to fi nd ways to restrict and fi nally to remove themselves and their children from a violent household were successful. Multiple phases were commonplace, occurring over a number of years. One half of the women interviewed had one perpetrator, which could include one man only and, in extended households, his relatives. The other one half experienced clusters of violence. Clusters occurred when women experienced violence from more than one perpetrator, for example sexual and physical violence begun in childhood and, later on, extended into their marriages or to other men known to the women, including family friends and more remote relatives. Alternatively, violence with a single perpetrator, which could include his family, could expand to her children or her mother, or other family members. In mapping pathways each different perpetrator and victim was identifi ed as a separate cluster as help seeking involved different combinations of agencies. Clusters were experienced sequentially or, if one or more were not resolved before another began, cumulatively. Clusters of violence also had phases. The decision to leave was more often than not made slowly and, without agencies available to help girls and women, there would be no escape. Agencies almost always offered some assistance, however inadequate. Responses from health agencies illustrate problems in communication, referrals and networking with other agencies.
