When Systems Become Trauma: Multilevel Impacts of Institutional Betrayal on Sexual Violence Survivors’ Help-Seeking In Post-#Metoo Taiwan

Background:

In the wake of Taiwan’s 2023 #MeToo movement, increased public awareness has facilitated sexual violence (SV) survivors’ willingness to disclose their experiences and seek formal support. However, institutional responses do not uniformly promote recovery. Drawing on Jennifer Freyd’s conceptualization of institutional betrayal (IB) and Judith Herman’s trauma and recovery framework—which emphasizes safety, acknowledgment, and relational repair—this study conceptualizes IB as a form of relational and structural trauma that may compound survivors’ initial victimization. IB refers to harm resulting from institutional failure to prevent or respond appropriately to wrongdoing. Situated within the Social Ecological Model, this study examines how IB operates across individual, relational, institutional, and societal levels. Despite growing global attention to IB, limited research has explored its multilevel and gendered impacts in non-Western contexts, where fragmented service systems and sociocultural dynamics complicate help-seeking. This study addresses this gap by examining IB among adult female SV survivors in Taiwan, integrating survivor and service provider perspectives.

Methods:

This qualitative study employed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore survivors’ meaning-making processes surrounding institutional interactions. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 adult female SV survivors and 5 mental health service providers between March and July 2025. Participants were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling. Interviews focused on help-seeking trajectories, institutional encounters, and perceived impacts across psychological, relational, and functional domains. Data were analyzed through iterative coding, theme development, and cross-case synthesis, guided by feminist and anti-oppressive frameworks to foreground gendered power relations embedded within institutional processes.

Results:

Findings reveal that IB operates as a cascading, multilevel trauma extending beyond the initial assault. At the individual (trauma) level, survivors experienced psychological and physiological exhaustion, including exacerbated trauma symptoms, emotional dysregulation, and suicidality. At the relational level, diminished self-worth emerged through internalized blame, shame, and powerlessness, reflecting broader gendered norms and rape culture. At the institutional (policy/practice) level, impaired life functioning manifested across education, employment, and financial stability due to burdensome, invalidating, and fragmented service systems. At the societal (global/structural) level, survivors described a progressive collapse of trust, extending from interpersonal distrust to systemic and societal disillusionment. Importantly, the study identifies secondary institutional betrayal, whereby both direct and vicarious institutional failures lead to selective disengagement or complete withdrawal from formal support systems. These findings demonstrate the recursive nature of IB, in which institutional failures reproduce trauma and deepen structural inequities.

Implications:

Findings underscore how institutional practices may inadvertently reproduce harm, highlighting the need for trauma-informed, gender-responsive, and culturally grounded interventions. The concept of institutional courage emerges as a critical counterpoint, emphasizing accountability, transparency, and survivor-centered care. Implications for social work policy and practice include cross-system integration, workforce training in trauma-informed and anti-oppressive approaches, and structural reforms addressing fragmentation and power asymmetries. Positioned within global social work, this study contributes non-Western insights into institutional responses to SV and calls for a shift from individual-level intervention toward systemic accountability, justice, and transformative change.