This is the second blog in our series on the ethics of researching gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) against women (read the first blog here). Drawing on conversations with grassroots organisers and women survivors, we invite researchers—especially those focused on GBVH in workplaces—to adopt approaches that are more reciprocal, transparent, and accountable to the people who make such research possible.
At a recent grassroots meeting in South India, a gender-based violence survivor described an academic interview where she was pressed with deeply personal questions. The experience, she said, left her sleepless for weeks:
“When the researcher asked me those questions, it felt like I was being sexually abused all over again. The interview itself became another form of violence.”
This experience is not isolated but part of a broader discomfort among survivors and grassroots organisations with how GBVH research is often conducted—particularly in marginalised communities in the Global South.
Over the past decade, growing interest in the topic has supported key policy gains, such as International Labour Organization Convention 190, the first international standard on workplace violence and harassment.
Research has exposed long-ignored abuses and strengthened the evidence base for advocacy. But alongside these gains, survivors and grassroots groups are increasingly questioning how GBVH research is done—and who benefits from it.
What makes GBVH research unique?
GBVH is unlike other labour issue, such as wages or hours. Particularly in the Global South, women often navigate multiple layers of vulnerability—not only as women but also as migrant workers, informal labourers, single mothers, and members of oppressed caste, racial, or religious groups. GBVH research reaches into some of the most painful and intimate aspects of people’s lives. When handled without care, it can retraumatise survivors. As one garment worker put it:
“They open our wounds, take what they need, and disappear. We stay behind, bleeding.”
Additionally, due to the potential emotional impact of sharing their stories, survivors risk facing isolation, retaliation, and lasting social stigma. In this context, sharing your story with a researcher is not just an interview but an act of resistance and courage.
Therefore, we cannot simply apply the methodological tools typically used in labour research to GBVH research without adaptation.
Who benefits?
Beyond the emotional toll on individuals, many community leaders highlight a profound structural imbalance: the benefits of GBVH research rarely reach those whose lives and struggles make it possible. Researchers often depend not only on survivors but also on their families, communities, and grassroots organisations for data and support. Yet once the data is collected, these communities are often left behind—still facing the same conditions. As one union organiser put it:
“The researchers take our stories, our pain, our time—and what do we get? They say it will help future generations, but what about our present needs? We’re tired of vague promises about ‘raising awareness’ while our daily struggles go unanswered.”
Meanwhile, researchers and their institutions often benefit tangibly. Studies grounded in survivors’ experiences help build academic careers, secure funding, and boost institutional prestige. A grassroots organiser shared:
“Researchers build entire careers studying the pain of our community. Meanwhile, we’re still fighting the same battles—and when we ask for help drafting a legal complaint about the same GBVH case a researcher studied, sometimes they don’t even respond. That hurts the most.”
This reflects not just a methodological issue but a design flaw: GBVH research—especially involving marginalised survivors—often fails to treat survivors and community organisations as equal partners. While academic institutions and researchers are often seen as the primary producers of knowledge, those with lived experience are relegated to the role of informants. Survivors and community leaders feel reduced to footnotes in a pre-set research agenda. As one union leader reflects:
“They come in with a fixed idea of what they want to hear. If you don’t fit the story they want, they don’t write it down.”
Another theme that came up in conversation is that they felt treated merely as data sources—not as experts. One labour organiser in India emphasised:
“We’re not just victims with stories to tell—we’re experts on what causes violence and what might end it. But researchers rarely ask us about solutions.”
Additionally, when researchers finish data collection, they often disappear—offering no updates, feedback, or access to findings. Publications are frequently inaccessible, hidden behind paywalls, or written in academic jargon – and almost exclusively only published in English. One NGO worker recalled:
“They interviewed women for hours about abuse and retaliation, wrote it all down, and left. No translation, no follow-up, no report back. Not even a phone call. We only found out there was a publication because someone else forwarded it to us.”
Towards more reciprocal GBVH research
Survivors and grassroots organisers we interacted with are not rejecting GBVH research – they are calling for a more reciprocal approach grounded in mutual respect, shared purpose, and engagement throughout the entire research cycle.
Many grassroots groups have spent years developing strategies to address GBVH. They understand the systems that enable it, and the tools needed to resist it in their context. A more reciprocal approach means recognising these community organisers and survivors as co-creators—and, where appropriate, as co-authors – contributing to conceptualising research goals and choosing methods from the outset. This not only ensures just recognition of their contributions but also enriches the insight and relevance of the research. Embracing this shift calls for a rethinking of how we value survivors’ and organiser’s knowledge and participation.
If we recognise them as experts, we must also be prepared to compensate them accordingly. Organisers and survivors have made clear that compensation is not always about money. It can mean supporting the infrastructure they have built—unions, survivor networks, and community legal efforts. As one survivor explained:
“If they’re worried about bias, fine—then don’t pay us. But at least support our legal aid fund, or our union counselling work, or our education fund.”
A more reciprocal approach also means ensuring that community organisers and survivors don’t just have access to findings but also have a say in how findings are used and shared – such as being invited to academic presentations. One organiser suggested:
“If they’re studying GBVH laws, they could create a basic FAQ, get it translated, or hold a session explaining the law in plain language.”
A grassroots organisation in India shared one such positive example: a researcher studying the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) Act turned her findings into a booklet in the local language and printed 100 copies. The organisation still uses it in advocacy efforts with factories and government officials.
Institutional Progress
We recognise that individual researchers—no matter how well-intentioned—cannot transform research ethics alone. More reciprocal research on GBVH requires institutions to progress, too.
Funding structures must move beyond valuing academic outputs alone and include dedicated resources for community engagement, translation, feedback, and follow-up. Universities and research institutions must begin recognising and rewarding ethical, community-rooted engagement. Research timelines should integrate time and flexibility to build trust, nurture relationships, and support communities beyond data collection. Ethical review processes could include questions on how a research project delivers tangible benefits to the communities that make it possible. Reciprocity, in this sense, is a collective project that requires the full weight of institutions behind it.
Research as a contribution to justice
Reciprocity is not an optional gesture of goodwill but a form of justice. It recognises that survivors and organisers’ time, knowledge, and emotional labour are not peripheral to research—they are its foundation. Without their trust, and the risks they take to speak about GBVH, there is no data, no insight.
To move beyond extractive models, we must reimagine research not as a neutral act of documentation but as a practice of care—anchored in respect for, accountability to, and solidarity with those who make it possible.
This approach is not just an abstract ideal. Alongside the thoughtful ideas that come directly from community organisations when they are meaningfully engaged, frameworks like Feminist Participatory Action Research also offer practical guidance.
The question is no longer: “How do we study gender-based violence?” but “How can our research contribute meaningfully to ending it?
- This blog contains inputs from many survivors of GBVH and community organisers in India who generously shared their experiences and insights with us. To safeguard their safety and privacy, names have been omitted.
- All views expressed are of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the organisations they work for.
- Feature image by EqualStock on Unsplash.
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