Unveiling the Truth: Lessons from a Failed List Experiment on Experiences of Wartime Sexual Violence in Kosovo

Abstract

Wartime sexual violence (WSV) is often stigmatised, and in survey questionnaires, respondentsmay under-report their victimisation if the question is asked directly. To mitigate this risk, wedeveloped a list experiment allowing victims to report sexual violence experienced during theKosovo war in a less intrusive, less direct way. While the responses collected through a directquestion suggest a prevalence of WSV roughly comparable with previous estimates, our item listrevealed an insignificant and negative reporting of WSV. Lower reports of WSV in a non-intru-sive question compared to a direct question suggest that the item-list failed. Following a criticaldiscussion of our research design, we explore the underlying patterns in the data and reveal anissue with the data collection itself: when interviewers helped respondents with entering theiranswers, respondents provided systematically different answers to the count questions. We con-clude that variations in the implementation of the interview protocol interfered with our design.Overall, the behaviour of interviewers and interviewees appear to translate complex societal re-lationship with victimisation. It suggests a possible degree of “fleeing”, a term used to describea situation where respondents actively avoid being associated with a stigmatised behaviour,but also, and more clearly, an unexpected greater reporting of non-stigmatised victimisationwhen answers are filled in by an interviewer rather than provided privately. We conclude withsuggestions for future work.