What effect does staying in a women's shelter have on women?

Abstract

Domestic violence has lately become a subject of great interest for me because never before had I viewed it as a social problem. The research undertaken for this dissertation aims at understanding what women who have experienced domestic violence go through when they are admitted to a shelter and what effects does living in a shelter have on them. It also aims at getting an overview of what the person managing the shelter where the research was carried out thinks about this issue and compare this with what the women who participated in this research said. The research consisted of interviews with residents, ex-residents and with the person managing the home. The women talked about how they got to know about the shelter, the help that they were being offered at Dar Merhba Bik, the shelter were the research was carried out, and also about the changes, if any, that they had experienced since they were admitted to the shelter. The main conclusions of the research are that the shelter can have both positive and negative effects upon the women residing in them. There were areas where the shelter had direct effects on the women residing in them and others where there were indirect effects. Even if a lot of the women are in a devastating state of mind when they were admitted to the shelter, those who were willing to get away from the abuse, found their stay at the shelter to be a positive one. The women indicated that there were areas of improvement both inside the shelter and also in broader society. It was concluded that there is room for improvement in the general public's awareness of the shelter especially as regards other professionals with whom women come in contact with. The shelter was found to meet the physical, material and emotional needs of the women quite efficiently even though there is always room for improvement in certain areas.