Young Arab women (YAW) in Israel who have been abused in childhood may experience barriers to both formal and informal support as an ethnic minority and a gender exposed to exclusion, discrimination and oppression. However, only scant reference has been made to this problem in the literature. Here, in a qualitative study of twenty YAW in Israel who had experienced abuse in childhood, we explored their perception of barriers to support following the abuse. Theoretical understandings were developed using a grounded theory approach. The ecological theory and the intersection of the marginal positions theory further developed emergent theoretical understandings during analysis. The main findings of the study are based on three major meta-categories: sociopolitical barriers, sociocultural barriers and intra-interpersonal barriers. These meta-categories, which create a mechanism of silencing the abuse, reflect a cumulative effect of the barriers ranging from macro-levels to micro-levels. The article discusses the implications of the findings on social policy and social work training in order to enhance culturally- and gender-adapted treatment programmes.

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Young Arab women who have been abused in childhood are vulnerable due to their marginalized positions in Israeli society. These positions include their gender, age, ethnicity, and nationality, alongside facing abuse. These intersecting positions may jeopardize their developmental process into adulthood. In this qualitative study of 20 young Arab women in Israel, we analyzed their coping processes following multitype maltreatment in childhood and adolescence. In the short term, we identified four strategies of coping: keeping problems to oneself, self-blame, giving up, and using stress relief practices. In the long term, we identified two main patterns of coping: distancing and integration. The integration pattern was manifested in two ways. One was a more accepting tone of the sociocultural reality through the use of rationalization and a positive restructuring of the self. The other was a more critical tone toward Arab society. Our findings underscore the influences of the sociocultural environments that shape the coping processes of young Arab women who have experienced girl abuse. Moreover, our study suggests that the developmental stage of young adulthood may be a critical phase for reaching out to young Arab women who have experienced girl abuse.

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