Religious literacy for responding to violence and abuse involves the capacity to go beyond stereotypes

Abstract

Purpose There is an increasing recognition that health and social care professionals require the knowledge and skills to negotiate religious beliefs and cultures but as yet there is little understanding as to what this entails. The purpose of this paper is to explore what religious literacy means in regard to protecting children from sexual assault in Australia’s Jewish community and Muslim women who experience domestic violence. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on two ongoing research studies, this paper provides an overview of the diverse perspectives found in the literature on child sexual assault in Jewish communities and Muslim women’s experiences and responses to domestic violence. Findings Individual and community attitudes and responses to child sexual assault and domestic violence do not fit stereotypes either within or beyond religious communities. Hence, educating for religious literacy needs to ensure stereotypes are recognised as undue simplifications of the truth, and failure to understand this can result in harm. Furthermore, religious literacy is important for health and social care workers if they are to effectively engage with the leadership of religious communities to change community attitudes. Originality/value This paper draws together common issues around the need for religious literacy when working with Jewish and Muslim communities in addressing issues of abuse and violence.

“Gatekeeping Family Violence”: The Role of Religious and Community Leaders in the Afghan Migrant Community in South Australia

“…These views of family violence highlight the importance of governments and the legal system engaging with the Afghan community in SA in order to better understand the impact on family life of Islamic law and other faith-related factors as well as to educate the community about Australian law (Australian Muslim Women's Centre for Human Rights 2011; Bartels 2010;Ghafournia 2017;Truong et al 2020;Esmaeili et al 2022). This religious literacy (Bartels 2010;Crisp et al 2018;Ghafournia 2017;Truong et al 2020) on the part of governments and the legal system, combined with the involvement of faith and community leaders in both community education and pastoral support, could assist vulnerable community members to access the criminal justice system and other support services in relation to family violence Zannettino et al 2013;Ibrahim 2022;Vaughan et al 2020). This article also points to the need for more empirical studies that explore how socio-cultural discourses in CALD communities inform responses to family violence occurring within these communities, and how these are propagated or contained by religious and community leaders.…”

Integration of religious beliefs and faith-based resources in domestic violence services to migrant and ethnic minority communities: A scoping review

“…Papers that sought to apply a faith-sensitive lens to DVA services working with religious communities or that evaluated such programs Studies and resources under this theme could be divided into two types: studies that presented the particular characteristics of communities of faith with the aim of improving religious literacy among social workers and DVA providers (Hodge, 2004;Jayasundara et al, 2017), and studies that presented approaches integrating a spirituality component in culturally competent services catering to migrant, ethnic or religious minorities, or that compared the benefits of culturally specific versus more generalist services (Gillum, 2008b(Gillum, , 2009Pan et al, 2006;SPR, 2018;Stennis et al, 2015). Overwhelmingly, this evidence comes from the USA, although it also included a study from Australia that explored religious literacy in protecting children from sexual assault in Australia's Jewish community and in responding to Muslim women who experience DVA (Crisp et al, 2018).…”

Integration of religious beliefs and faith-based resources in domestic violence services to migrant and ethnic minority communities: A scoping review

“…Studies and resources under this theme could be divided into two types: studies that presented the particular characteristics of communities of faith with the aim of improving religious literacy among social workers and DVA providers (Hodge, 2004; Jayasundara et al, 2017), and studies that presented programmes or approaches that integrated a spirituality component in culturally competent services to migrant, ethnic or religious minority communities or compared the bene ts of culturally speci c services in comparison to more generalist services (Gillum, 2008b(Gillum, , 2009Pan et al, 2006;SPR, 2018;Stennis et al, 2015). Overwhelmingly, this evidence comes from the USA, although it also included a study from Australia that explored what religious literacy means regarding protecting children from sexual assault in Australia's Jewish community and Muslim women who experience DVA (Crisp et al, 2018).…”