‌Context & Objective: Domestic violence violates women's fundamental human rights, threatening their physical and psychological integrity while undermining their right to effective access to justice as a core pillar of the rule of law. Although legal developments have shifted domestic abuse from a private family matter to a public legal issue, formal recognition of the right to litigate does not guarantee its practical realization. In Iran, Afghan immigrant women experience compounded vulnerability in bridging the gap between statutory entitlements and substantive justice due to the intersection of gender, migration status, non-citizen position, and socio-cultural marginalization. Existing Iranian criminological literature largely examines macro-sociological patterns or victimization typologies without analyzing how intersecting identities shape the litigation process. Addressing this gap through intersectionality theory, this study analyzes the socio-cultural and institutional barriers affecting these survivors' pursuit of justice. Specifically, it asks which socio-cultural manifestations and institutional mechanisms most significantly restrict effective access to justice for Afghan immigrant women experiencing domestic violence by permanent or temporary spouses in Iran.
 ‌Method & Approach: This qualitative study was conducted in Qom, selected for its diverse Afghan immigrant population and relevant judicial and administrative institutions. Data were collected through face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with 67 participants across two epistemological groups, recruited via purposive and snowball sampling until data saturation was reached. The primary group comprised 54 Afghan immigrant women survivors of domestic violence, accessed through criminal and family courts, the legal department of the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants' Affairs in Qom, and snowball referrals. Reflecting diverse trajectories, 29 women had approached courts, 16 had pursued matters through the Bureau for Aliens or dispute resolution committees, 8 had not taken legal action or lacked access, and 1 had withdrawn her complaint. The second group consisted of 13 legal professionals—judges, attorneys, women's rights activists, and Afghan legal advisors—interviewed to supplement and interpret the institutional dimensions of the women's narratives. Transcribed interviews were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis method within an intersectional framework.
 ‌Findings: Thematic analysis revealed two main categories of impediments: normative socio-cultural barriers and operational challenges within the justice system. Socio-cultural barriers encompass traditional religious and customary norms imposing patience, patriarchal structures, and informal social control. Collectivist values prioritizing family preservation and collective honor frame domestic abuse as a private affair, rendering litigation and divorce social taboos. Kinship networks, religious elders, and reciprocal exchange marriages between families—where a divorce in one union triggers retaliatory divorce in the other—pressure women to withdraw complaints and remain in abusive relationships. Patriarchal attitudes in the community and judiciary also foster victim-blaming, ethnic stereotyping, and the devaluation of women's testimonies. Operationally, survivors confront structural support deficits, communication barriers, and low legal literacy. Dialectal differences between Iranian Persian and Afghan Dari, Pashto usage, and the lack of court interpreters hinder effective communication. Furthermore, illiteracy, inadequate court guidance, and residency fears perpetuate silence and reliance on informal intermediaries.
 ‌Conclusion: Socio-cultural and operational barriers do not operate in isolation; instead, they interact within a cyclical mechanism conceptualized as a "multi-layered structural siege on access to justice". Within this intersectional model, migration status acts not as an independent obstacle, but as a compounding factor intersecting with gender, economic dependency, and low social capital to intensify other barriers. Normative pressures raise the social cost of litigation and erode women's agency, while operational deficits and unsupportive institutional responses restrict participation and cause secondary victimization. This cyclical interaction reproduces vulnerability and perpetuates domestic violence and legal exclusion. Realizing substantive access to justice requires multidimensional criminal policy interventions beyond formal statutory protections. Necessary measures include culturally and linguistically tailored legal awareness programs, confidential legal aid and safe shelters, specialized training for judicial personnel to prevent gender and ethnic bias, inter-agency referral mechanisms linking courts, police, welfare, and migration offices, and engaging trusted community figures to reduce the stigma of litigation.