To think that women's refuges are not "outdated"

[BertieBotts]

Article in the Guardian today about closure of women's refuges.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/03/domestic-violence-refuge-crisis-women-closure-safe-houses

This is so, so sad and frightening and should not be happening. Outdated, FFS. I wish the need were outdated, but it is very much not. I presume that the "outdated" comment is borne of some pressing need to include men, somehow forgetting that refuges are not just about having a safe place to flee to (of course, this is important for male and female victims) but also about a recovery, a shared female existence, the acknowledgement that male violence against women is not "just a domestic issue", but happens within a culture which excuses and condones it, for the most part. Female abuse victims need specialist support because of this. Not to mention that women are far more often fleeing with children, meaning different kinds of facilities are needed. Female violence against men (or male on male partner violence, which is actually more common) still exists of course and yes should be taken seriously, with victims supported and given a safe space but to say that it is the same, and that the same kind of support, recovery and facilities are needed is a fallacy.

It absolutely gobsmacks me that one was closed because they were having higher numbers of women return to their partners. Removing it altogether helps how? And the closing of specialist Asian and BME centres is an utter disgrace.

What can we do? There have been petitions, fund raisers. They don't seem to be DOING anything.

but that is my point. Why do we accept it is too dangerous for women?
Why arent we challenging this and doing more robust prosecutions and sentencing and encouraging women to support prosecutions and not flipping welcome the offender back into the home after sentencing? ( which is worryingly normal)

There is emergency accommodation for families with children which is probably what a man fleeing violence with children would be offered. They are not protected addresses like refuges, though (some may be) and there is unlikely to be ongoing support like there is at women's refuges.

But as said in the article, it's far less likely for men to return to an abusive relationship once they have left. So it's clear the support needed is different. Yes wouldn't it be lovely to have a home for men fleeing violence with a lovely playroom etc but the fact is there aren't enough victims in this position to justify it, (which is a GOOD thing!) and in addition, men tend not to need additional support to keep their children safe in this kind of situation, so it needs to go where it is most needed, ie where there are women and children's lives quite literally endangered by lack of services.

The only other situation I can think in which a victim of crime is forced to leave their home is witness protection situations perhaps?

It's dreadful.

I have donated by text, and am going to contact my MP

i dont think this is a great idea .but i do think that not taking in men is wrong .i mean they can be victims just the same .they could have rooms for men and children in the refuges as well

in the same refuges as the women?

VAmpire I don't think so. The need is generally not as great. Though a report from 2010 says that the amount of male victims comes to 40% but taking into consideration the percentage of them from childless relationships or gay childless relationships and it's probably under 20%...though that's an educated guess.

I do know that in Manchester there is a hostel specifically for young gay men who have had violence or abuse in their lives. One. That's not many is it.

Maybe if someone has committed a crime whereby a person and their children are no longer safe in their own home that criminal should be deemed not a safe person to be in society and should be given a custodial sentence/ not given bail. But how are they dealt with..... Ah, have a community resolution, say sorry and go home.

I know it is not this simple, but maybe this is part of the problem, of women having to flee their own homes to escape violence, society is letting them down. And they are letting them down again by not funding refuges for them when they do flee their own homes to keep themselves safe.m

According to this 2012 article there are 25 beds in 8 refuges for heterosexual men, and a greater number than that supported for/by the lgbt community.

If they have all been full for the last two years then that is of course a good argument to have more male only refuges, but completely irrelevant to the number of women-only refuges required.

And I'll be donating by text. Having seen the amazing work of WA. Fwiw my question was really not meant to be to do with women refuges, it was out of interest as I have no idea! In an ideal society, men who were abusers would be arrested etc; but also bear in mind that his family and friends will know where you live and could very likely blame you (so you wouldn't feel safe from them, depending on what they are like) and that some times it will be very much your word against there's, especially with emotional abuse only where there are no visible marks. In financially abusive situations, the woman might have no ownership over or right to the house, so couldn't stay there?

This is absolutely disgusting. And no I don't think men should be in the same refuges as women.
If men (as a gender) are that worried why aren't they campaigning for more male refuges then!

These closures coupled with the fact that they want to charge single parents (who are mostly women) for use of the Child Maintenance Service sends out a very clear message to women.
And that message is this ....".How very dare you leave your husband. Don't you know you are his property"

Make no mistake That AND saving money is the reasoning behind this.

Capt Chaos Im so sorry to hear what you went through

Sorry - I hope I didn't sound stroppy!

It's a fair question, I knew I'd read something about it so went to check.

I don't think you sounded stroppy at all!

From stroppy to soppy (ahem) I apologise, but I have to tell you what happened in my house this afternoon.

I had some music playing and DS (5) asked what the music was called. I said it's a band called Nirvana. He asked what Nirvana meant and I said it was a peaceful place, a happy place, where everything is calm and there are no worries. He said "Oh, like our home then?"

I swear, I could have actually choked up and started crying but I didn't. Of course that's the feeling every child deserves to have about their home. The truth is that without mumsnet relationship board, my local DV support and women's aid's website - and the knowledge, given to me by those sources - that I could leave and there would be SOMEWHERE for me to go, I might still be in an emotionally abusive relationship, and he might never have made that connection.

Five years ago mumsnet posters could assure posters with some certainty that "if you leave, there will be somewhere for you to go". Now that is not the case. It is heartbreaking.

I agree a stiff stay way order from children school mum work and the house violate once then tag then jail the end

that single violation could mean serious risk to the life of the woman and children though

you're right bertie - that newspaper article itself may have caused numerous women to give up on the idea of escaping abuse. not that it shouldn't have been written of course, it's important that people know and can act

I have no doubt that refuges for men are needed but why don't men do something about it and create them? Not a single women's shelter would exist if women hadn't done something about it.

Just disgusting. I'm so sick of how some men have warped the definition of equality to their benefit. The overwhelming majority of domestic abuse victims are women and their children, so they need places where they can be safe.

(Of course, they should be allowed to stay home but that's not incredibly practical if the danger to their lives is at liberty and able to break in and kill them in their beds.)

Refuges are vital. There needs to be somewhere safe to go where you can get support to rebuild your life.

I do think there needs to be more support for people to stay in their homes but on a practical level that's not always possible.

It's absolutely not appropriate and in fact would be extremely damaging to ask female victims of DV at the hands of men to share housing with men they don't know. If your life has been blighted by male violence to the point you have had to run for it, you need to know that it cannot enter the place you are staying, that it is a genuine refuge from it. That is why many refuges do not allow male volunteers or maintenance staff or male visitors (or even male children over a certain age) into their refuges.

When men have wanted anything else they have just gone out and made it happen. I expect they could set up a refuge or two for men if they gave a shit - which mostly they don't.

This is a deeply pernicious and disingenuous appropriation of the language of feminism to produce a result that is anything but fair for women.

Very well said Fair

Exactly Fair If men wanted male refuges that badly they would sort it themselves. Like women had to.

It's just astounding, isn't it?

I mean, so forty years ago or thereabouts, there was this huge problem. Women were being beaten, abused, mentally tortured in their own homes by the men who were supposed to love and protect them. Men who weren't doing this were largely turning a blind eye. Not my problem. Men in charge were ignoring this as a problem, perhaps considered it normal, even justified. Or just pretended it didn't exist. Perhaps they thought it didn't matter. It was only women, after all.

Women were being killed, and so they decided, look, men aren't going to protect us from their own or other men's violence, we're going to have to do it ourselves, and they did. They built up a network of safe houses across the country, they amassed an incredible amount of astute knowledge about the way that abusers work, how they tend to react, they trained workers, they offered therapy, they, in short, created a fully functioning solution and counter, in the lack of any action by authority or men themselves. If you can't stop or prevent the abuse, you can at least deal with the effects of it and by George have they pulled that off. My strongest hope is that however much services and funding and availability diminishes, we do not let that knowledge die.

Fast forward to 2014, women are still being killed, beaten, mentally tortured, every day. This has not ended. I don't like to refer to feminism as a war, but in this part, it is a war, a thousand numerous casualties, one which women cannot win alone. The best we can do, without men being on board is to deal with the casualties.

I don't understand it. I don't know if the people making these decisions are just unaware of this. It is frighteningly naive. This is not a long time ago - the time before refuges is well within living memory. But if they cannot see how absurd and outrageous it is to expect services helping victims of violence against women to also help men - I don't care if they are saying they can have separate facilities - it is just astounding. I have run out of words to describe what a tragedy this whole idea is.

More women and children are going to die, because the services aren't available. I don't know how they think it has magically gone away. Perhaps the effects have reduced. Because of refuges.

If this was happening with racism in a so called civilised country people would be horrified. Why aren't people horrified?