Experiences of intimate partner violence victims: Continued abuses during and after litigation

Abstract

This quantitative study examined the experiences of intimate partner violence victims during and after separation, with a particular focus on experiences with family court proceedings. Participants were recruited from a family court advocacy agency and self-identified as victims of intimate partner violence. This study explored the following three hypotheses: 1) Participants will report an increase in harassment, stalking, verbal, psychological, and emotional abuse from ex-partners post-separation 2) Participants will report re-traumatization from legal professionals and paraprofessionals in the family law or court system 3) Participants will report that behaviors associated with litigation abuse will go unrecognized by the family court system and legal professionals. Participants reported a post-separation increase in incidents of physical harm toward their children, threats to take their children away, threats to the survivor, their children, family, property, or pets, financial abuse, and insulting or threatening texts or social media messages. Many participants reported re-traumatization in court and reported that legal professionals verbally threatened them, mocked them, did not give them a chance to speak in court, exaggerated the survivor’s faults in court, and provoked them to elicit emotional reactions. Domestic violence survivors indicated a lack of trust in the systems in place to protect them. Systems-level changes to legal proceedings and expanded training for legal professionals is needed.