Phambile! Refuge for Battered Women and their Children
© Moira Richards
A Refuge for Battered Women and their Children was established in 1999, in South Africa.
The Phambile! Refuge accommodates about 30 women and children, and the women who have to flee domestic violence can be housed there with their kids, for a period of 3 months. During this time they are comforted, cared for and counseled. The women are taught about their rights in terms of the Domestic Violence Act and are shown how to obtain a Protection Order.
They partake in an extensive treatment and care programme that is designed to hone their life-skills and to help them to return safely to their community. Here are some of the stories from the women who were staying at the Refuge.
The first woman told how difficult a decision it had been for her to leave her abusive husband and her home to come with her kids to Phambile! She told of previous times that she had tried to leave him, and how it was only when she was in total dispair, was she able to make the break and to try for a new chance in life for herself and her children.
She spoke too, of how her relationship with her kids had grown and flourished after only a few short weeks of peace. At home, she said, the tensions caused by her abusive husband, the always-present peril of violence, the constant monitoring of his mood, had so distorted family life that she and her kids had not been able to enjoy the kind of relationship that so many mother and children take as their due.
Another woman stood up on one leg and explained that the other had been chopped off by her husband with an axe. She told how her young daughter was now able to relax and enjoy herself in the Refuge. At home, at the start of each weekend, the child had become anxious, had begged her mother to hide, to flee the inevitable domestic violence that the weekend would bring.
Other women told of how empowered they were by the skills they had learned at the Refuge. They told of the care, the support and the friendship that they found there. They acknowledged that life there was not easy - they and their kids were all suffering various degrees of trauma and displacement - but that they had at least glimpsed some hope for a better future.
The Phambile! Refuge accommodates about 30 women and children, and the women who have to flee domestic violence can be housed there with their kids, for a period of 3 months. During this time they are comforted, cared for and counseled. The women are taught about their rights in terms of the Domestic Violence Act and are shown how to obtain a Protection Order.
They partake in an extensive treatment and care programme that is designed to hone their life-skills and to help them to return safely to their community. Here are some of the stories from the women who were staying at the Refuge.
The first woman told how difficult a decision it had been for her to leave her abusive husband and her home to come with her kids to Phambile! She told of previous times that she had tried to leave him, and how it was only when she was in total dispair, was she able to make the break and to try for a new chance in life for herself and her children.
She spoke too, of how her relationship with her kids had grown and flourished after only a few short weeks of peace. At home, she said, the tensions caused by her abusive husband, the always-present peril of violence, the constant monitoring of his mood, had so distorted family life that she and her kids had not been able to enjoy the kind of relationship that so many mother and children take as their due.
Another woman stood up on one leg and explained that the other had been chopped off by her husband with an axe. She told how her young daughter was now able to relax and enjoy herself in the Refuge. At home, at the start of each weekend, the child had become anxious, had begged her mother to hide, to flee the inevitable domestic violence that the weekend would bring.
Other women told of how empowered they were by the skills they had learned at the Refuge. They told of the care, the support and the friendship that they found there. They acknowledged that life there was not easy - they and their kids were all suffering various degrees of trauma and displacement - but that they had at least glimpsed some hope for a better future.
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The copyright of the article Phambile! Refuge for Battered Women and their Children in Abuse Against Women is owned by Moira Richards. Permission to republish Phambile! Refuge for Battered Women and their Children in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
