“Journey of hope”: A study on sexual gender-based violence reported by asylum-seeking women during their journey to Europe

OBJECTIVES: to describe sexual gender-based violence (SGBV) reported by asylum-seeking women during their journey from their country of origin to Italy, using data obtained from medical record of asylum seekers hosted between June 2016 and December 2017 at the “T. Fenoglio” Red Cross Reception Centre, one of the largest Italian regional hubs; to evaluate if, based on these data, it is possible to hypothesize an underreporting of SGBV from these women. DESIGN: cross-sectional study. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: 2,484 asylum-seeking females hosted in the centre for initial-reception of Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta regions (Northern Italy) between June 2016 and December 2017. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: prevalence of SGBV. RESULTS: among the women arrived at the centre, 46 reported being victim of SGBV during their journey to Italy (prevalence: 1.85%; 95%CI 1.39-2.46), 37 of which with reliable and verified data supported by health certification doc-umentation (prevalence: 1.49%; 95%CI 1.08-2.05). Women who suffered SGBV have a higher prevalence of diseases than their counterpart (more blood, digestive, neurological, psy-chological, genital diseases, and AIDS), are more frequently pregnant, and asked more frequently for a voluntary inter-ruption of pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS: the low prevalence of SGBV identified sug-gests that underreporting and under-recognition of the phe-nomenon are possible. This highlights the need to offer a psy-chological support to all migrant women at their arrival in the Italian hubs, also when they do not report violence.