A women's shelter, also known as a women's refuge and battered women's shelter, is a place of temporary protection and support for women escaping domestic violence and intimate partner violence of all forms. The term is also frequently used to describe a location for the same purpose that is open to people of all genders at risk.
Representative data samples done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that one in three women in the U.S. will experience physical violence during their lifetime.Breiding MJ, Chen J, Black MC. Intimate Partner Violence in the United States – 2010. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2014. One in ten will experience sexual violence. Women's shelters help individuals escape these instances of domestic violence and intimate partner violence and act as a place for protection as they choose how to move forward. Additionally, many shelters offer a variety of other services to help women and their children including counseling and legal guidance.Chanmugam, A. (2011). Perspectives on US Domestic Violence Emergency Shelters: What do Young Adolescent Residents and their Mothers Say?. Child Care In Practice, 17(4), 395.
The ability to escape is valuable for women subjected to domestic violence or intimate partner violence. Additionally, such situations frequently involve an imbalance of power that limits the victim's financial options when they want to leave. Shelters help women gain tangible resources to help them and their families create a new life.Perez, S., Johnson, D. M., & Wright, C. V. (2012). The Attenuating Effect of Empowerment on IPV-Related PTSD Symptoms in Battered Women Living in Domestic Violence Shelters. Violence Against Women, 18(1), 102–117 16p. Lastly, shelters are valuable to battered women because they can help them find a sense of empowerment.
Women's shelters are available in more than forty-five countries. They are supported with government resources as well as non-profit funds. Additionally, many philanthropists also help and support these institutions.
History
Asia Offering shelter to abused women is not a new concept in Asia. In feudal Japan, Buddhist temples known as Kakekomi Dera acted as locations where abused women could take shelter before filing for divorce.Cassegård, C. (2013). Youth Movements, Trauma and Alternative Space in Contemporary Japan. Leiden: Brill, 78. However, a formal system was not established until 1993, when the grassroots women's movement of Japan built the first shelter.Yoshihama, M. (2002). Breaking the web of abuse and silence: voices of battered women in Japan. Social Work, 47(4), 389–400 12p. doi:sw/47.4.389 Today, there are thirty shelters throughout the country.
A similar history did not lead to as much progress in China. Women's shelters did not exist until the 1990s and since then the country only opened a small number. In Beijing there are no shelters for the 20 million residents.
Australia
In Australia, the first women's refuge, known as Elsie Refuge, was opened in Glebe, New South Wales, in 1974 by a group of women's liberation activists. Many others followed, with 11 established around the country by the middle of 1975 and many more to follow. Initially these services were entirely reliant on volunteer efforts and donations from the community, but they subsequently secured government funding under the Whitlam government. However, government policy has recently seen some moves to dismantle the women's refuge movement, so that in New South Wales since 2014 the management of many refuges has been handed over to large religious agencies so that they now often operate as generic homeless services rather than specifically catering to women and children escaping domestic violence.
Austria
The first women's shelter in Austria opened in Vienna on 1 November 1978; it was immediately overcrowded. The second Viennese women's shelter, to which an advice centre was attached, followed in February 1980. Graz housed the first women's shelter outside the capital on 12 December 1981, and Innsbruck on 16 December 1981. While the financing of the women's shelters in Vienna was secured from the outset by the municipality, the autonomous initiatives in the other states had to fight for their financial resources, sometimes with many setbacks, and often request subsidies from several places each year.
As of April 2020, there are 29 women's shelters in Austria; 15 of them are connected to the Verein Autonome Österreichische Frauenhäuser (Autonomous Austrian Women's Shelters Association).
Canada The very first women's shelter in Canada was started in 1965 by the Harbour Rescue Mission (now Mission Services) in Hamilton, Ontario. It was named Inasmuch House, with the name referencing a Bible verse (Matthew 25:40) quoting Jesus Christ as saying "Inasmuch as you have done it for the least of these, you have done it for me." It was designed to be a practical outworking of Christian values relating to justice and care. Although originally conceived as a shelter for women leaving prison, its clientele later became women escaping abuse by their partners. The concept of Inasmuch House was shared with other Christian inner-city missions across North America and led to the opening of other such shelters.
The first shelters in Canada developed from a feminist perspective were started by Interval House, Toronto in April 1973, and the Ishtar Women’s Resource Society in Langley, British Columbia.blog Edmonton Women's Shelter (later WIN House) – a group from all walks of life, and secular as well as Christian beliefs – was opened in January 1970 to shelter any woman who needed shelter for any reason. These homes were grassroots organizations that lived on short term grants at first, with staff often working sacrificially in order to keep the houses running to ensure women's safety.
From there, the movement in Canada grew, with women's shelters opening under a variety of names - often as a Transition House or Interval House - opening up across the country in order to help women flee from abusive situations. The Alberta Council of Women's Shelters was founded in 1983. The Transition House Association of Nova Scotia, which runs shelters in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was founded a few years later in 1989.
ACWS became a founding member of Women's Shelters Canada and also hosted the first ever world conference of women's shelters in Edmonton in 2008. The conference included 800 delegates from 60 countries. The world conference is now a separate organisation with a fourth world conference set to take place in Taipei in 2019. In February 2019 ACWS hosted the first Western Canadian violence-prevention conference, the 'Leading Change Summit: Bold Conversations to end gender-based violence' which included Dr. Michael Flood (QUB) and actor and activist Terry Crews, as well as 230 delegates from community organisations, trade unions, government and corporates committed to ending domestic violence.
The shelter Chez Doris in Montreal, Canada, offers services in English, French, and Inuktitut. Servants Anonymous Society (SAS) provides aid and shelter to women exiting the sex industry.
Canada's longest running rape crisis centre is the Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter.
Ethiopia In 2003 the initial women's shelter opened its doors under the Association for Women's Sanctuary and Development (AWSAD) in Addis Ababa. In 2019 AWSAD opened sanctuaries for victims of sexual violence in war-torn northern Ethiopia with support from the United Nations Development Programme.
France When a rise in domestic violence occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic in France, the French Government invested 1 million euros in establishing 20 new help centres throughout the country located near supermarkets, where victims can go while going out for groceries, and be redirected to dozens of hotel rooms that functioned as temporary shelters paid for by the government.
Germany The first shelter for battered women was opened in West Berlin in 1976, created by women of the autonomous women's movement with funds from the FRG's Ministry of Family Affairs. The Berlin project triggered a wave of women's shelters foundations, which were granted financial aid on the basis of Paragraph 72 of the Federal Social Aid Law.Kristina Schulz: Der lange Atem der Provokation. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, , p. 229. For example, the city council of Cologne decided in December 1976 to finance the women's shelter set up by a social worker.Maria Mies: Der Kampf um das „Frauenhaus Köln“. Zentrale Informationsstelle Autonomer Frauenhäuser (ZIF), autonome-frauenhaeuser-zif.de (PDF). In subsequent years, women's shelters were founded in other German cities. Most of them were projects of the autonomous women's movement.Margrit Brückner: Erfolg und Eigensinn. Zur Geschichte der Frauenhäuser. In: Mechthild Bereswill, Gerd Stecklina (ed.): Geschlechterperspektiven für die Soziale Arbeit: Zum Spannungsverhältnis von Frauenbewegungen und Professionalisierungsprozessen. Beltz Juventa, 2010, , p. 61f.
Since the Gewaltschutzgesetz ("Protection from Violence Law") entered into force on 1 January 2002, according to which violent offenders can be expelled from the residence, the need and number of women's shelters have decreased. In 2002 there were approximately 400 women's shelters in Germany, of which 153 were autonomous.Fachlexikon der sozialen Arbeit. 5th edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2002, , p. 348. According to a study published in 2012 on behalf of the Ministry of Family Affairs, 15,000 women, accompanied by 17,000 children, sought refuge in the then around 350 women's shelters and 40 protection homes in 2011. However, women had to be turned away 9,000 times because the facilities were full.Lisa Erdmann: Überfüllte Frauenhäuser: Letzte Zuflucht – versperrt. at: Spiegel Online Politik. 6 November 2012. In 2013, 34,000 women and children sought refuge in facilities, but once again 9,000 women had to be rejected.
According to the allocation formula of the Istanbul Convention (Article 23), which Germany ratified in October 2017 and entered into force there in February 2018, there was a nationwide shortage of 14,600 women's shelters. In accordance with the coalition agreement, the CDU/CSU and the SPD have announced an action programme to support women affected by violence and a round table evaluation by the federal, state and local authorities on the subject in order to ensure the needs-based expansion and adequate financial security of women's shelters and corresponding advice centre.
Iran Behzisti has Health houses, Social intervention center and safehouses may offer 20 days of service and after that may offer permanently care for maximum of 6 months. There are two in Mashhad and Arak has one. Isfahan has a rehab center. Women must be no less than 15 years of age. IRGC and Tehran municipality have center of women who were formerly addicts in east of city. They have emergency telephone number people can dial 123. Sanandaj has one building with capacity of 60 people.
Iraq Yanar Mohammed launched the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), a group active in supporting women's rights since the U.S.-led invasion; the OWFI set up women's shelters and safe houses to protect women threatened by domestic abuse and honor killings, including the first women's shelter in Iraq, founded in 2003.
Italy The first shelter for battered women in Italy was opened in 1989 in Bologna, Casa delle donne per non subire violenza, by a feminist group of women, with one secret apartment and a public counselling centre.
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