Help-Seeking In the Context of Poly-Victimization and Coercive Control Among Marriage Migrant Women

Background/Purpose: Marriage migrant women, including naturalized citizens, exhibit heightened vulnerability to intimate partner violence (IPV). While their legal, social, and economic dependence on spouses is a documented barrier to help-seeking, the specific nature of IPV victimization further constrains their agency. According to Johnson’s typology, IPV characterized by the intersection of physical violence and coercive control—termed 'intimate terrorism'—systematically isolates victims and instills a profound fear of retaliation, rendering help-seeking more arduous than in other forms of IPV. Drawing on Johnson’s typology and help-seeking theory, this study identifies latent patterns of IPV and examines how help-seeking behaviors vary across these distinct profiles.

Methods: This study used data from the 2024 National Survey of Multicultural Families in South Korea. Among 13,015 marriage migrant women, the analytic sample included those who reported experiencing at least one form of IPV from their spouse (n = 1,837). Eleven indicators of emotional, controlling, economic, physical, and sexual violence were used to identify IPV patterns through Latent Class Analysis (LCA). BCH analyses were conducted in two stages: first, class differences in any help-seeking were tested in the full sample (0 = no; 1 = yes); second, class differences in type of help-seeking were examined among help-seekers (0 = informal support; 1 = formal support). Reasons for not seeking help were examined descriptively by class.

Results: A 4-class model was selected as the final model: Control–Sexual Violence (C1, 13.9%), Physical–Severe Sexual Violence (C2, 9.2%), Severe Poly-Victimization (C3, 67.7%), and Lower-Victimization (C4, 9.2%). Demographically, women in C3 tended to be younger with shorter residence durations, showing the highest intact marriage but lowest naturalization rates. Conversely, women in C1 and C2 were generally older with longer residence durations, whereas C4 showed the highest naturalization and lowest intact marriage rates. BCH analyses showed significant class differences in help-seeking (p < .001). C3 had the highest proportion of help-seeking, whereas C1 showed the lowest. Among women who sought help, the proportion of formal support use also differed significantly across classes (p < .001), with C4 showing the highest and C3 the lowest (Help-seeking: C3 > C2 > C4 > C1; Type of help-seeking: C4 > C2 ≈ C1 > C3).

Conclusions/Implications: Findings highlight the heterogeneity of IPV and that whether women seek help and whom they seek help from may represent related but distinct aspects of the help-seeking process. In particular, the vast majority of survivors (67.7%) belonged to C3, implying that victimized marriage migrant women are likely to experience multiple concurrent forms of abuse. Notably, patterns involving controlling abuse (C1, C3) severely hindered formal help-seeking; C1 rarely sought any help, while women in C3 relied almost exclusively on informal support. Conversely, C4’s high formal support use suggests such resources may prevent abuse exacerbation. Since reasons for not seeking help (e.g., concealment of abuse, privacy concerns, and fear of child separation) varied across the patterns, tailored, culturally sensitive, survivor-centered interventions are urgently needed to safely bridge informal to formal support.