Abstract: Embodied Health Consequences of Gender-Based Violence: A Qualitative Study with Urban Refugee Women In Kenya (Society for Social Work and Research 31st Annual Conference)

Schedule:

Friday, January 22, 2027

Golden Gate 7 (Hilton San Francisco Union Square)

* noted as presenting author

Kate Cruikshank, BA, Student, Columbia University, NY

Lena Moraa Obara, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Columbia University, New York, NY

Aishworya Shrestha, MSW, Doctoral Student, Columbia University

Enoch Amponsah, MSc, PhD Student, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Ebuka 'Chukwuebuka' Ukoh, MSW, PhD Student & Doctoral Research Assistant, Columbia University, New York, NY

Nana Ama Achiaa Sarkodie, BA, Research Assistant, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

Sree Zenith, MSW, Doctoral Student, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH

Susan Witte, PhD, LCSW, Professor, Columbia University, New York, NY

Samantha Winter, PhD, Associate Professor, Columbia University, NY

Introduction

Gender-based violence (GBV) is prevalent among forcibly displaced women, yet limited research has examined how GBV impacts the physical, mental, and reproductive health of urban refugee women living outside camps in East Africa. Refugee survivors in Nairobi, Kenya have reported experiencing multiple, intersecting forms of GBV, including intimate partner violence (IPV), financial abuse, and technology-facilitated violence. This violence is compounded by poverty, legal precarity, and stigma, and contributes to heightened stress levels, increased dependence on humanitarian systems, and reduced access to psychosocial care. These patterns of health risk and lived experience are often overlooked in broader GBV research.

Methods

This qualitative study explored the connections between GBV and health among refugee women in Nairobi, Kenya. We analyzed semi-structured, trauma-informed, in-depth interviews from 50 refugee women (ages 19–59) from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan, all of whom reported experiencing at least one form of GBV during migration. Data were transcribed, de-identified, and thematically analyzed using NVivo. We also sought feedback from an advisory board to strengthen contextual interpretation and the validity of our findings.

Results

Participants described GBV as producing interrelated and enduring harm across three domains. Mentally, the women experienced continuous fear, anxiety, hypervigilance, trauma reactivation, and dissociative symptoms, often exacerbated by persistent threats and insecurity in exile. Physically, women reported acute injuries from life-threatening violence (including severe beatings or poisoning), chronic pain, functional limitations, and stress-related conditions such as hypertension, frequently worsened by poverty and postponed or neglected medical care. Survivors of sexual violence reported complications, including heavy bleeding, childbirth issues, and unintended pregnancies, along with untreated or recurrent genital infections, all influenced by stigma and barriers to post-assault services.

Conclusions and Implications

Findings suggest that GBV functions as a sustained and interrelated threat to health in contexts of urban displacement. The study highlights the urgent need for integrated, trauma-informed, and reproductive-inclusive services, alongside structural efforts to reduce legal, economic, and healthcare barriers for refugee women in Nairobi. By documenting how violence shapes health and access to care in an underserved urban refugee population, this study contributes evidence to inform more equitable and responsive social work practice and service systems.