When structural violences create a context that facilitates sexual assault and intimate partner violence against street-involved young women

Abstract

This article presents findings from a participatory action research project conducted with a group of seven street-involved young women in the urban area of Quebec City (Canada). The objective of this research was to explore their experiences of homelessness through the lens of structural violence. Structural violence is the process through which social inequalities are produced. The data gathered through five focus groups revealed the presence of two gendered patterns of structural violence: social exclusion and social control. These two processes reinforce each other in a cycle. Indeed, the participants' strategies to overcome social exclusion and to fulfill their basic needs made them vulnerable to social control. In turn, social control had increased their financial difficulties and their fear of exclusion. These two processes of structural violence had also created contexts that facilitate sexual victimization and intimate partner violence.