Personal Violence and Crisis Intervention

The women’s crisis and counselling centre, Angala (The Courtyard), was set up in 1993 to systematically reach out, respond and offer moral and legal support to women who are victims of violence and abuse both within marriage and outside, enabling them to lead a life of dignity 
free from violence. 

Set up in 2001 in Vemgal, Kolar about 60 kms out of Bangalore, Kuteera ( The Refuge) seeks to be a safe and secure shelter for women victims/survivors of violence. It provides a space where women can heal and refind their strengths to live independently, creatively and to lead a life free of violence. Another part of the work in the shelter is also networking with women’s groups in the different villages, around the issue of violence against women.

From its very beginnings while our concern has been with working for larger changes in the social and political system through public campaigns, we were one of the first women’s organisations who were part of the Autonomous Women’s movement to start responding to individual women who were victims of different kinds of domestic and personal violence. And we are one of the very few who continue to do so, now in a more organised way through Angala, the crisis centre initiated in 1993 and Kuteera , the shelter for women in distress initiated in 2001 to concretely reach out, respond and offer support to women who are victims of violence particularly within marriage enabling them to live a life of dignity, free from violence.

Family as a site of violence

Marriage has been the structure that has down the ages institutionalised those notions of gender evolved from patriarchal norms specific to different times and contexts. In the current context of the changes being introduced by the processes of globalisationcombined with the political fundamentalisation of the personal sphere where patriarchies are getting increasingly brutalised, personal violence is growing in epidemic proportions. Apart from the increasing numbers of women being brutally murdered within marriages or driven to committing suicide, there is also an increase in the number of women being abused by alcoholic husbands, incidence of sexual violence within marriage, bigamy, desertion and harassment, both physical and mental. Dominant social attitudes and distorted cultural practices that endorse these forms of violence in the personal realm of the family and home ensures that this does not get the public rejection it deserves. The increasing practice of dowry as a means of enhancing social status and personal incomes and the total devaluation of women’s roles within the home and community provides the context in which this violence is steadily growing. Women from almost all classes and communities rarely question or reject this violence, for they are constantly given subliminal messages that they should tolerate and adjust, for that we are told is women’s strength. And so she does, often at the cost of her mental equilibrium, physical limits and many times, her life itself.

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