Anyone who knows me will know I am not someone who cries often. But today, reading the list of women’s services either defunded or changed beyond recognition, I found myself close to tears.
I think of the women I know, the women who fought for these services. The women who begged, borrowed, fought, marched, petitioned, shouted and somehow managed to establish a safe place for their sisters fleeing violence. The women who squatted in old houses, painted, scrounged furniture, gave time, energy, sweat and tears to create those services that are disappearing. The women who used their own experience, their own capacity to relate to other’s experience, their skills, their knowledge, their training and their sweat and their tears so that women who have refuge. Bugger ‘homelessness services’ and ‘support services’, let’s go back to that original and emotive word – refuge. Refuge – a place of safety, a place to regroup, to heal physically and emotionally from abuse, to see your kids laugh again instead of cowering in corners, a place of safety and healing and the support of other women.
I think of the women I have known, the women who came in taxis in the dark with bleeding mouths and bruised faces and crying children and whatever they could carry in battered plastic bags, the women who came in Police cars with nothing except what they wore, the women we picked up from railway stations fleeing across two states to escape, the women who came to us almost wordless, polite and quiet and terrorised.

I remember the shattered faces of children and the little girl who, having seen a poster with the slogan ‘children have the right to be safe’ asked me ‘Shirley, what’s safe?’

Women’s refuges provide a place for women to begin to rebuild lives shattered by violence and abuse. Women’s refuges provide space for healing, recovery, regathering strength and beginning to rebuild families. Women only refuges are safe for women battered by men, women raped by men, women whose culture forbids contact with men and women who fear for their children at the hands of men. Women’s only refuges mean that workers can be very sure that, if the abuser is male,(and almost all of them are) he is not likely to infiltrate, arrive unnoticed or slip through the door. Women workers in women’s services model capability, strength and support to other women and their children, boys and girls. Victims of domestic violence have often had their self-worth shattered, they have been taught again and again that they, as women, are ‘less than’, weaker than, useless, stupid, objects, punching bags. Their children have watched their mothers treated with contempt, have often learnt and internalised that contempt. Respectful, caring, strong women workers begin to provide a different reality, a wider perspective.

I think of the workers I have known and worked with. Women from many backgrounds and experiences. Women who choose to work with other women and children because they have a commitment and a passion for the rights of their sisters. Workers who go to Court with a woman and stand between her and her abuser, workers cleaning up vomit and blood, making beds up, leading groups, advocating, speaking out, mediating, negotiating, and sitting for hours listening to the pain filled stories of terrorised women. I think of the worker standing behind the security door trying to talk down a man who is kicking the door in and cursing as her co-worker leads the residents to the back exit and they both pray the Police will get there quickly. I think of the worker returning from a Police escorted attempt to retrieve some of a resident’s belongings. I think of her calm as she comforted the devastated woman, made her tea, settled her down and then her own tears in the office as she recounted finding the woman’s possessions smashed and shredded, pissed on and the children’s cat dead on the top of the pile.

I remember workers crying and raging together at another death, another child removed, another woman who returned to the abuser, another overdose, another woman who could not find housing. I remember the pain when a child cowered from an accidentally raised hand, when a woman shook and trembled because she had dropped and broken a cup, when we took a woman to the hospital as she lost her baby after another bashing. I remember that after each of these times we, like the women we worked with, regathered, regrouped and kept working for change.

I remember watching little girls follow a worker around as she made some minor repairs – learning that girls can fix things. I remember workers playing with the children, setting clear boundaries, but still having fun and showing those children that not all adults are angry and hurting, modelling behaviours like fairness, and kindness and sharing. I remember a mother saying that her 11 and 12 year old sons had never been around women who spoke to them respectfully and expected the same in return. I remember a young woman telling me ten years on that she had learnt in refuge that children shouldn’t be beaten and had used this knowledge to raise her own children differently. I remember women watching as women workers planned, acted, supported, assisted and stood by them. I remember deliberately modelling that women could disagree and still support each other, encouraging women to learn to drive, to go back to study, to look for work, to play with their children , to talk about issues and share their stories safely, to seek help for addictions and mental health issues and health problems without being shamed or denigrated. Women supporting women, women standing by women, women doing the day to day work of a refuge and advocating and speaking out and engaging and playing and laughing all add to a different idea about what women are and can do.

I remember being able to refer women to specialist services – housing for women struggling with drug and alcohol, for survivors of child sexual abuse, for women with mental health issues, to young women’s specialist services and specialist women’s housing services. These services too – the next step, the safe place for so many women and children – are about to be lost.

I remember the women who rang, came back, kept in touch and let us know that they had completed that course, got that job, learnt to drive, taken the children on holidays, established a household that was safe for their children, learnt a new skill, said no to an unsafe relationship, kicked the drugs or the alcohol. I remember the women who would have died, or lost their children, or raised a new generation who saw abuse as normal, or disappeared into depression, addiction, fear, lives spent just surviving. I remember the women who reclaimed their lives, and their children’s lives, because, when they needed it, refuge was there.

I remember that same little girl, the one who asked what ‘safe’ was, drawing a picture after two weeks in the refuge. It showed a house, a little crooked and coloured bright green, with a mum and two little girls going in the door. Surrounding the house, unflattering but recognisable portraits of the workers. The caption: ‘Safe is here’.

So, to ‘save money’, to ‘rationalise our services’, to ‘provide a more coordinated approach’ we are losing our refuges and other services that support the most vulnerable. We are losing the expertise, the knowledge, the skills of workers who have been at forefront of the fight for women’s safety. We are losing the right to services for women, by women, and that loss will cost lives and futures.

Where is safe, now?