Giving refugee to victims of abuse
sheltering the abuse victims
Gender based violence is a growing problem in Southern Africa. Inherently patriarchal societies mean women are susceptibly to effective control by their male partners. This control has to often seen women suffering from emotional, sexual, and physical abuse within their own marriages.
Men suffer in silence. But tragically some have died after being violently attacked by their own partners. While the government has made tremendous strides to make court processes as favorable as possible for victims of domestic violence, they lack the facilities to properly protect these people after they have reported their cases.
After reporting abuse cases some women are still forced to g back and live in the same houses with their abusers.
This is because most of the domestic abuse victims do not earn an income and have to depend on their husbands for their livelihoods. As a result, too many cases of abuse within marriages go unreported.
In the instances where the cases are prosecuted and the offenders reprimanded or punished the marriages hardly survive. And even though the woman herself may be free from the abuse the collapse of the marriage means has terrible effects on the children caught up in the middle.
because the majority of these women can’t adequately look after the children on their own they often leave them behind. This gives them some freedom and safety but it exposes the children.
We have found it beneficial, and sustainable in the long run, to instead empower people with resources that enable them to help themselves. Too many times people struggle in poverty because, while they may be able-bodied and can work they do not have the skills and capital to start and run profitable income-generating projects.
