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. However, a formal system was not established until 1993, when the grassroots women's movement of Japan built the first shelter. Today, there are thirty shelters throughout the country. 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 's first women's shelter 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. For example, the city council of
Cologne decided in December 1976 to finance the women's shelter set up by a social worker. In subsequent years, women's shelters were founded in other German cities. Most of them were projects of the autonomous women's movement. 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. 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. 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;
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.
Mexico In Mexico City, local law allows the government to force the abuser to leave the home instead of the victim, even if the property is owned or rented in the name of the abuser, thus making the home a sort of shelter in itself. This law was supported by
Claudia Sheinbaum, who later became president of Mexico.
Netherlands In the
Netherlands, women's shelters emerged in the 1970s as
blijf-van-mijn-lijfhuizen (literally: "keep-[your-hands-]off-my-body houses"). Their locations were kept secret, but especially since the emergence of digital technology in the 1990s, the secrecy of the locations proved to be almost impossible to maintain. Moreover, some women were still not able to completely cut off all communication with their (former) partners and secretly sought contact with them anyway, leaving them vulnerable without the shelter's oversight. To address these issues, the remaining
blijf-van-mijn-lijfhuizen gradually converted to so-called
Oranje Huizen ("Orange Houses") in the 2000s and 2010s, whose location is not secret, but they do have permanent security for survivors, and they allow for safe contact between survivor and (ex-)partner if both parties are interested in it. These restyled shelters are still commonly known as
blijf-van-mijn-lijfhuizen.
United Kingdom In England in 1971,
Erin Pizzey started the first domestic violence shelter in the modern world after Haven House, which opened in 1964 in California,
Chiswick Women's Aid; the organization is known today as Refuge. Since that time almost every European country has opened shelters to help domestic violence victims. Two countries even offer shelters for particular ethnicities and cultures. An article in the Convention sets the creation of women's shelters as a minimum standard for compliance.
United States The first women's shelter in the modern world was Haven House, which opened in 1964 in California. The first federally recognized DV shelter was an early women's shelter in the United States, Emergency Shelter Program Inc. (now Restorative Pathways), was established in Hayward, California, in 1971 by a local group of women who attended church together. Betty Moose, one of the founding members, officially incorporated the shelter in March 8th 1971, now International Woman's Day. Shortly after the founding members established a local domestic violence hotline. Before the shelter was officially open volunteers housed women in their own homes. Other women’s shelters soon popped up around the United States which include
Rosie's Place in
Boston, Massachusetts, which was opened in 1974 by
Kip Tiernan, and the Atlanta Union Mission in Atlanta, opened by Elsie Huck. Women's shelters evolved over time. Grassroots community advocates in the 1970s offered shelters as one of the first services for victims of intimate partner violence. Volunteers and shelter workers offered legal and welfare referrals to women when they exited but contact afterwards was limited. More recent programs, such as those funded by the
Violence Against Women Act, offer longer term stays for women. Another recent change is the increasing amount of shelters publicizing their locations to increase funding and visibility in the community. By 2000, the United States had over 2,000 domestic violence programs in place, many with domestic violence shelters included. == Services ==