Fear As a Unifying Mechanism Linking Community Violence and Intimate Partner Violence In Informal Settlements In Kenya

Background and Purpose: Research has established the co-occurrence of intimate partner violence (IPV) and other forms of community violence in informal settlements. Social disorganization theory suggests that structurally disadvantaged communities weaken collective efficacy, reduce residents' informal intervention, erode trust, and increase the likelihood of violence in both public and private spaces. Prior research has found a significant association between community violence and IPV victimization, especially in informal settlement areas. However, limited research has examined the mechanisms through which community violence and IPV interact to suppress help-seeking and erode institutional trust. This study addresses this gap by using in-depth qualitative interviews to examine, from the perspective of residents in Kibera and Mathare, the mechanisms linking community violence and IPV.

Methods: In this narrative qualitative study, we conducted in-depth interviews with 36 IPV survivors, 30 clinic staff, and 24 community health volunteers (CHVs) from two informal settlement areas (Kibera and Mathare) in Nairobi, Kenya. Interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide by sixteen trained community-based researchers. Data were translated from Swahili to English, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using NVivo 15. Two members of the research team coded transcripts line by line, and the codes were then grouped into themes using the Braun and Clarke (2006) methodological framework.

Results: Findings revealed institutional distrust, with participants describing a systematic collapse of trust across police, village elders, chiefs, and religious leaders who dismissed cases, demanded bribes, sex in exchange for assistance, and breached confidentiality by alerting perpetrators. Participants described an undifferentiated fear in which partner violence and neighborhood danger merged into a single, continuous threat. They also described the normalization of violence in these settings, accepting it as an inevitable condition of daily life. Failure by law enforcement and local leaders to respond to perpetrators further reinforced fear and suppressed help-seeking.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings underscore the need for integrated violence assessment tools that capture compounding exposures across community and intimate partner violence. They also point to the importance of trauma-informed workforce models, stronger institutional accountability, and improved protection responses from authority figures, including law enforcement. The study challenges siloed approaches to IPV and community violence in both research and intervention design, and advances understanding of its co-occurrence in informal settlements. Findings have direct implications for community violence prevention efforts in the Global South and for IPV service delivery in resource-constrained urban settings.