16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is an international campaign that begins each year on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25), and concludes on Human Rights Day (December 10). Each year, the campaign highlights a new theme relating to gender-based violence (GBV). This year’s theme is “UNiTE to End Digital Violence against All Women and Girls,” focusing on the growing threats of digital abuse that women and girls face amidst technological advances. The 16 Days of Activism are an opportunity for activists around the world to come together and push for systemic change by sharing their stories and spreading awareness.
For these 16 Days of Activism, we reached out to Hoa Bui, a researcher at Carleton University who is part of the Engendering Disability-Inclusive Development — Genre, handicap et développement inclusif (EDID-GHDI) partnership. Hoa works with the EDID-GHDI Vietnam team to explore the systemic barriers faced by disabled women and girls in Vietnam to their participation in leadership and decision-making processes in relation to their social, cultural, and political lives, what additional supports are necessary, and how change can be enacted. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hoa conducted critical research to understand violence against women with disabilities in two districts of Nam Dinh, Vietnam, and the supports that were available to them. Researching during the pandemic presented Hoa and her team with unique challenges, but also revealed powerful insights made visible only under COVID restrictions. Explore her fieldnotes from this research experience below.
In 2022, my research team conducted a mixed-methods study to understand Violence Against Women with Disabilities (VAWD) and available support services in the Truc Ninh and Hai Hau districts of Nam Dinh province, Vietnam. This research project was funded by the Australian Alumni Grants Fund (AAGF) at Aus4Skill, a resource partnership between Australia and Vietnam that funds research to promote socioeconomic development in Vietnam. The AAGF is particularly supportive of Vietnamese alumni of Australian educational institutions. Our project focused on VAWD and their supports during COVID-19, which had been present for nearly two years when we began our fieldwork. Crucially, the districts we chose to study were experiencing their first wave of cases, so our trip was postponed several times. We had to wait for guidance from the local authority to align with the social distancing policy regulated by the government.
Having a local partner was critical for the study to proceed at the locality, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. We selected the Department of Health of Nam Dinh (DoH), because they consult with the government on support and provide care for survivors of gender-based violence. They also direct their resources to support the health of survivors of gender-based violence at the District and Commune levels of government. So, in working with the DoH, we were totally dependent on our local partner for permission to visit sites and for finding participants. While their support ensured that the fieldwork was conducted smoothly despite the pandemic, I believe our reliance on them resulted in a sample bias and therefore in data that did not fully reflect the situation of violence. Our dependence on them also allowed the DoH to function as a gatekeeper, directing us to participants who were already listed as recipients of disability benefits under state social policies, or members of unions. So unfortunately, we likely excluded those who were most disadvantaged (women not on the beneficiary list or not affiliated with a union). This dependency, compounded by project timeline restrictions (we could not extend the timeline due to funding deadlines following the COVID-19 postponements), restricted our opportunity to negotiate on participant access and led to an incomplete picture of the situation.
The fieldwork exposed a stark conflict between institutional reports and lived realities. The women and girls we interviewed provided detailed accounts of violence against them across all four types, including physical, emotional, sexual, and economic. These narratives highlighted the specific compounding effects of intersectionality, detailing how their disability was weaponized for abuse (e.g., being mentally abused and blamed for the family’s financial burden during the economic strain of COVID-19). Crucially, many women with disabilities did not seek help because of past unsuccessful attempts, the fear of reprisal or revenge from perpetrators, and the fear of being blamed. This fear, rooted in the failure of previous institutional interactions, helps explain why violence could happen in a circle, trapping women in abusive situations.
In contrast, some local authorities, especially police officers who participated in interviews or discussions, did so primarily because they were diplomatically invited by the Department of Health. What they reported might not necessarily reflect the real situation at the locality. Often, they did not acknowledge violence against women and girls with disabilities to be a prominent or serious issue, especially during the pandemic. They seemed very confident in declaring no violence in their locality, participating in the systemic erasure of the women’s experiences, and reinforcing the very conditions of impunity that fueled the survivors’ fear of seeking help.
The pandemic not only delayed our work but also critically created conditions of structural violence. This was made tangible during the fieldwork itself: on the day of the interviews, most healthcare providers and local authorities were fully mobilized to urgently vaccinate the local population. Our original plan required a local authority to escort me to the participants’ residences and stay there during the interview to ensure safety and security for both researchers and participants. However, due to the overriding priority of the vaccination efforts, the escort was able only to take me to the location before returning immediately to their duties. Based on this observation in the field, it is clear that violence during the COVID-19 pandemic was made more serious because social services and local authorities prioritized combating the pandemic. The priorities of institutions during the pandemic meant that women and girls with disabilities would meet significant challenges seeking support. This institutional shift, combined with the pre-existing pattern of failed help-seeking attempts and the subsequent fear of revenge, confirms that the local authorities’ ignorance of violence against women with disabilities during the crisis only reinforced the impunity of perpetrators. Restrictive public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic—including mandatory social distancing and the immediate prioritization of resources toward vaccination—turned the pandemic into a systemic barrier.
Overall, we found that health measures in Nam Dinh during the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the vulnerabilities of women with disabilities experiencing violence. Systemic barriers also made it extremely difficult for their serious cases to be formally recognized because the very authorities who were meant to address these situations were simultaneously denying the issue.
– written by Hoa Bui – PhD Student in Sociology, Carleton University
