Nisaa steps in to help abused women
The Nisaa Institute for Women’s Development provides a haven for abused women and girls.
Nisaa’s shelter in Lenasia, south of Joburg, can accommodate 22 women and children for up to six months.
Victims can return to the shelter more than once if their situation warrants this, Nisaa managing director Sima Diar said.
Nisaa provides women with counselling and skills development, as well as helping them to find employment.
The shelter is in a secure location, which Diar said she couldn’t disclose for safety reasons.
The women are supported to work on an exit plan to leave their abusive partners, to rekindle relationships they might have lost with families and friends, and to relocate to other provinces for their safety if necessary.
Nisaa offers a pilot programme called the Girls Club, which is yielding positive results for girls who are starting to open up and disclose the hardships they have been through.
The institute also produces literature to help women leave abusive relationships.
Adult survivors of abuse have been encouraged to speak out about their experiences as a first step in healing and empowerment, and to access the relevant law enforcement agencies.
Keke Mabona (not her real name), a resident from Soweto who received help from Nisaa, said she experienced physical abuse from her husband for several years, and when she finally decided to leave him, her family intervened and told her she should go back to her husband.
At the end of her third year of marriage, she left her abusive husband and stayed with her mother and brother for over a year while looking for a job to take care of her child.
After four years her husband came to her mother’s house and claimed that he wanted her back, but she refused.
Her family told her to forgive him, and she told them she had forgiven him but that didn’t mean she must go with him. “I was told that I must go with him because he had paid lobolo and he married me, and to be a good wife is to forgive and let go,” she said.
Mabona was forced to go back to her abusive husband as “he promised to love and take care of me and my child, and because my family believed him, I did what I was told. My life became a living hell.”
Nisaa, which was launched in April 1994, with assistance from the Frauen Anstiftung, held its annual fundraising dinner on Friday.