Manorama Sunuwar

A recent study carried out by the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre showed that 64 percent of victims of violence against women suffered from domestic violence and 59 percent of them were raped by their close relatives. Even as the trend of reporting cases of domestic and sexual violence is gradually increasing, the incidence of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) must surely be higher than what is reported. Research shows that women are still reluctant to report cases of domestic and sexual violence because of a number of reasons, including financial dependency, a lack of awareness or education and a fear of social exclusion. Women need a lot of courage to step out of their homes and file a complaint against family members. Thus, ‘safe houses’ (sewa kendra in Nepali) have become a boon for women who want to speak out.

What do they do

The concept of a safe house is not new. The Government of Nepal declared 2010 as the year to end SGBV. Accordingly, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare established safe houses in 15 districts with an intention to protect victims. Safe houses are now a well-known transit shelter for victims of SGBV. Besides providing free lodging and food to victims, the homes also help victims pursue justice, advocate for their rights through women’s organisations and care for the mental well-being of victims.

Currently, there are 85 safe houses in 18 districts. All these houses are managed by women cooperatives and supported by the government’s women and children offices (WCOs). The safe house at the Sunsari district headquarters alone has served 257 victims of SGBV over the past four years. Every year, the number of women utilising the safe house is increasing, according to the safe house in-charge. Earlier there were quite a few reports on domestic violence cases. Now,  there has been an increase in the reporting of sexual violence cases too. Furthermore, all safe houses records show that women from marginal communities are the primary seekers of their service.

A study conducted by Nepal Peace Trust Fund (NPTF) showed that the establishment of safe houses had contributed to raising the confidence of women for their protection and consequently, led to an increase in the reporting of SGBV cases. The report highlighted that in the absence of safe houses, the WCO was facing difficulties in handling sensitive and serious SGBC cases. For instance, in Arghakhanchi, a victim of domestic violence committed suicide as the district WCO tried to send her back to her husband’s house. Similarly, in Humla, WCO staff often shared their residence with SGBV victims as the district lacked a safe house.

Common challenges

In spite of their outstanding contribution to the protection of victims, safe houses in all districts are facing common challenges. Their security is a foremost challenge. For example, almost all safe houses avoid displaying signboards in order to avoid unnecessary trouble from the perpetrators of such violence against victims taking shelter. The safe house coordinator of Doti said that they were forced to remove the signboard after a vandalising incident by a man whose wife had filed a case against him and was taking shelter in the safe house.

The safe house in charge of Sunsari also reported experiences of receiving many threats. In one such incident, the safe house was sheltering an incest victim and had managed to place the culprit in detention. The culprit’s supporters came to the safe house, verbally abused the staff and board members and even threatened to take their lives. In the end, the victim yielded to pressure and left the safe house and the threats ceased. In a few cases, cooperation between the WCO and the District Police Office (DPO) have managed to settle such cases but the DPO alone cannot fully ensure security for safe houses.

Safe houses usually don’t have the funds required to hire private security guards. A limited budget is provided to run the home, which compels them to establish the centres in cheap locations with a minimum of facilities. Some houses even lack a permanent boundary wall.

Insufficient human resource is another challenge for safe houses. Most safe houses only deploy two staff, including an in-charge and helper. The in-charge of the safe house from Kanchanpur said that she had often missed opportunities for capacity building and personality development as there was nobody else to hand over responsibility of the safe house and take leave. Similarly, many safe houses cannot provide much needed psychosocial and legal aid counseling as they lack qualified experts.

As the main objective of a safe house is to provide emergency shelter to a victim for a transitory period, the length of a victim’s stay is planned for around 15 to 30 days. In practice, however, many victims are forced to live there for more than two-three months due to a prolonged legal process. Safe houses in such conditions lack rehabilitation or recreational programmes for such residents.

More homes

Accordingly, the Ministry of Women has been receiving overwhelming demands for the establishment of more safe houses in districts that do not have them. The ministry itself has envisioned increasing the number of safe houses throughout the country and has planned to improve the management of existing safe houses. However, the pace of  progress is very slow. By the year 2013, three years after the declaration year to end SGBV, safe houses had only been established in three more districts while districts with safe houses established a few more at the VDC level.

The Nepal government is a signatory to various conventions and resolutions related to gender-based violence and has shown a strong commitment to combat SGBV. In this context, safe houses can contribute to minimising SGBV and protecting victims. Thus, an improvement in their management by ensuring the security of staff and victims should be the prime concern of the authorities. An ideal safe house would be a sanctuary where a victim can feel secure, where she has access to basic facilities, psychosocial and legal counseling and access to much-needed rehabilitation packages.

Sunuwar is a consultant with the Nepal Peace Trust Fund at the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction 

Published on: 4 April 2014 | Kathmandu Post