What is justice? Perspectives of Victims-Survivors of Gender-Based Violence

Marianne Hester*, Emma Williamson, Nathan Eisenstadt, Hilary A Abrahams, Nadia Aghtaie, Lis Bates, Geetanjali Gangoli, Amanda Robinson, Sarah-Jane Walker, Elizabeth McCarthy, Andrea Matolcsi, Natasha Mulvihill

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)
120 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This article explores “how do victims-survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) experience and perceive justice?” based on interviews with 251 victims-survivors with experience of different types of GBV and criminal, civil, and family justice systems. Victims-survivors were found to have multiple perceptions of justice, related to different points in their journey following abuse and regarding individual, community, and societal responses. Perceptions relate to accountability; fairness in outcome and process; protection from future harm; recognition; agency; empowerment; affective justice; reparation; and social transformation. Current understandings of justice in legislative and policy approaches reproduce the “justice gap” by failing to take account of how survivors themselves understand and demand justice.
Original languageEnglish
JournalViolence against Women
Early online date19 Nov 2023
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 19 Nov 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/M010090/1).

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.

Research Groups and Themes

  • SPS Centre for Gender and Violence Research

Keywords

  • Justice
  • Gender based violence

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

  • SDG 5 - Gender Equality
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Access to Document

  • Full-text PDF (final published version)

    This is the final published version of the article (version of record). It first appeared online via Sage at https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012231214772 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.

    Final published version, 776 KBLicence: CC BY

Handle.net

    • Justice, Inequality and Gender Based Violence

      Hester, M. (Principal Investigator), Abrahams, H. A. (Co-Investigator), Aghtaie, N. (Co-Investigator), Bates, L. (Co-Investigator), Eisenstadt, N. (Co-Investigator), Gangoli, G. (Co-Investigator), Matolcsi, A. (Co-Investigator), Mulvihill, N. (Co-Investigator), Patsios, D. (Co-Investigator), Turner, W. (Co-Investigator), Walker, S.-J. (Co-Investigator), Williamson, E. (Co-Investigator), Robinson, A. (Co-Investigator), McPhee, D. (Co-Investigator), Rumney, P. (Co-Investigator), Williams, A. (Co-Investigator), Sterk, G. (Collaborator) & Magnusson, L. (Principal Investigator)

      1/10/15 → 18/05/18

      Project: Research

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