Refuges full as women flee violence

Women’s refuges are bursting as family pressures boil over in the holiday season. Jackie Clark, who runs refuge charity The Aunties, was struggling yesterday to find a place for four women. She had called numerous refuges around Auckland but all were full.

The city has more than a dozen refuges that can house about 100 women and children.

Women’s Refuge spokeswoman Ruth MacIntyre-Bardell confirmed that all six refuges they run were at capacity.

She said coming out of Christmas was one of their busiest times.

“It’s a high-pressure time of year. There are a lot of expectations as well, like going on holidays, and bad weather means you’re in close proximity with family.

“Children are out of school, alcohol is involved, there’s pressure there . . . It’s the pressure of Christmas.”

More than 3000 women and children were in Women’s Refuge care in the two months from December 2016 to January 2017, the latest figures available.

New Zealand has the worst rate of family and intimate-partner violence in the world, with 80 per cent unreported.

Clark believed the pressure on refuges had got worse in the five years since she founded The Aunties.

“It’s just impossible at this time of year. All the social housing is gone and there just isn’t anywhere for these women to go. I’m just making sure they’re safe.

“There needs to be more of these places and social housing. More facilities that aren’t motels. It’s really unsettling for women moving from motel to motel.”

Clark wanted the Government to increase funding and enable more refuges to adequately cope with the numbers of women in distress.

MacIntyre-Bardell preferred a preventive approach as a refuge should be the last resort.

She said the cause of family violence was “atrocious attitudes towards women”.

She highlighted the case of a woman at the Rhythm and Vines music festival who was groped by a man while walking topless with her breasts painted with glitter.

Women’s Refuge funding had not increased in nine years, she said, and they were doing more than ever.

“We’d love to work ourselves out of the job. That’d be great.”