History of Refuges

[Timefortea4]

I want to learn more about how refuges were set up in the UK for women fleeing violence, and when they started to get funding from the state etc. Any recommendations? Thanks

If you enter this search you'll come up with some decent results. And then replaces the last 3 words with refuges etc. There was a good piece last year in The Atlantic about her.

site:mumsnet.com erin pizzey chiswick women's aid

www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/02/feminism-mens-rights-activism-cancel-culture/607057/

There's a section about Pizey in Helen Lewis' book Bloody Difficult Women

player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-scream-quietly-or-the-neighbours-will-hear-1974-online

This is interesting.

I'd really like someone to write a blog post about the history of refuges and Rape Crisis that doesn't focus on Erin Pizzey.

Originally it was illegal for women to leave an abusive husband and take the children, so the husband was able to call the police who would forcibly return her to the family home.
In the early days there were no shelters. Women just put up other women in their homes.
It was legal for a man to rape his wife up until 1992, and it only became illegal after over a decade of intense campaigning.

Women began to organise dedicated shelters in the 1970's, and they started to receive funding in the 1990's when Labour came into power. It took several decades for women to organise and fundraise for shelters, and the fedaration that gave them a political voice.

Now, many of the shelters are gone, they have become mixed sex or exist to serve groups other than women and children.

Local councils have a statutory duty to help women leaving violence. But this often involves you needing to be able to fund your shelter place with wages or housing benefit, and having to move to the next city. For women that work, have children in school and childcare arrangements it often just isnt feasible.
And there are never enough beds. Women's Aid estimate that 90 women and 90 children are turned away every day.