What Women Want in Refuge – New Evidence

A new report, launched today, shows that 73% of women who access emergency refuge because of domestic violence in Ireland say that they want to be safer and need changes in their lives.

“Women have told us what they want and it is important that the government takes what these women have to say seriously and continues to provide adequately for frontline domestic violence services.”

The groundbreaking study is the first in Europe to listen to the voices and needs of women accessing refuge and to assess how those needs are being met. It was carried out by Safe Ireland, the national representative body for frontline domestic violence services.

Dr Sarah Morton, Service Development Manager, said women accessing refuge were looking for protection for themselves and their children from their partner or management of contact with their partner. They were also looking for very practical supports, like information on housing or jobs, help with finding new schools or support on coping with the emotional impact of violence.

The evidence also shows that refuges are delivering what women need. Nearly all of the women (97%) said that they felt more protected from their partner or ex-partner on leaving refuge with 95% saying that they were better able to get what they needed for themselves and their children to move on.

The report shows that 38% of women said that they would have had nowhere else to go without refuge. Almost 17% said that they would have had to stay in the abusive situation with over 34% saying that they had heard about refuge from a friend or relative. The majority of women in refuge were between 16 and 35 with children.

“Women have told us what they want and it is important that the government takes what these women have to say seriously and continues to provide adequately for frontline domestic violence services.”

“The research evidence tells us that we doing our job and we are delivering vital change. But the service is a fragile one. In reality, we are in crisis. Services are being cut all the time by this government. Our services are stretched and can’t be stretched anymore.”

Dr Morton said there were indications that demand for services was actually increasing. Women could not be accommodated on more than 1,700 occasions in 2008. Initial figures also reveal that there was a 21% increase in women being supported between between 2007 and 2008. Figures released earlier from a one-day count showed that 263 women and 216 children were accommodated and/or received support from a domestic violence service on just one day, November 4th, 2008. This means that 11 women and 9 children looked for safety every hour.