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Research with violence against women (VAW) survivors as a hard-to-reach population involves various methodological and ethical challenges and this is particularly so in the context of strong patriarchal ideologies and limited research capacities, such as Pacific Island Countries (PICs). PICs record substantially high rates of VAW, but empirical research that has captured the experiences of VAW survivors is scarce and gender-disaggregated data is substantially missing or out-of-date. In addition, most research on VAW has been conducted by non-PIC-based researchers, with limited evidence of a long-term impact on PIC communities regarding the eradication of VAW and the development of PIC research capacity. We conducted surveys on the effectiveness and awareness of VAW-related laws with over 300 individuals each in Fiji and Vanuatu. Although we consulted the World Health Organization’s guidelines in research on VAW and other academic references on methodology, these guidelines required modifications in our data collection, considering the unique geographical and cultural contexts of the two case study countries. With the modified approaches, while the safety and confidentiality of women participants may have been somewhat compromised, the project successfully documented the views and experiences of VAW survivors (and some male abusers) with support from local postsecondary students as research assistants. The project also confirmed the high prevalence of VAW in the sample communities of the countries but the low awareness of the laws and support services among the participants. Based on the experience sharing among the authors regarding the data collection stage, this article discusses what sort of methodological approaches can be employed in research with a hard-to-reach population such as VWA survivors in the PIC (or similar) context.
Nakamura et al. (Mon,) studied this question.