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  Issue 61

   

NGO Shelter-centre

Taking care of women who are in front of men’s strokes


The NGO Shelter- centre is currently taking care of 12 women, who in front of their husband’s violence, found security in this temporary home.

During its five-year existence 1,283 women are provided for in the centre, most of them between the age of 40 and 50, from all nationalities and from all educational structures. Unfortunately, because of the bad economic situation, some of them returned under the same roof with the violent husband, and then came back to the centre again.
In front of the door of the NGO Shelter-centre several women are sitting. “Welcome”, they say. “Join us, we came here to get away from the heat”, they say.

Usual conversations, female, if you wish, or it’s better to say, meteorological, about the heat and about them. Black coffee on the table, some cups turned over “to see the destiny”, says one of the women.

And their stories and destinies are typically female. Twelve women, who are now at the NGO Shelter – centre, abandoned their homes because of physical and mental abuse of their husbands. Some of them are older, some are at the centre with their children, some of them work, and some, on the other hand, have 1,000 denars a month social help. And, of course, something that is understood, but should be pointed out, in order to protect the women who stay at the centre, their names are changed, as well as the names of their children. The location of the Shelter-centre is kept secret.

In the living room of the Centre we meet children who are playing. A ten-year-old girl dressed in a pink dress stands up and greets us. “Hello, I’m Lela, and this is my sister Nadica”. Nadica, on the other hand, is wearing trousers and a T-shirt, she has short hair and she says: “I don’t want to be a girl, I want to be a boy, I play with boys more. I watch football and I support ‘Barcelona’.” When we made a notice that she’s a beautiful girl and that she looks nice with the little golden earrings, as girls her age usually wear, she said. “They are a memory, that’s why I’m wearing them.

With Lela and Nadica are also their aunts, as they call the women from the Centre, who take care of them if necessary, while the mothers are at work. We met Radmila, Svetlana and Ankica, who found their temporary home at the Centre. The living room is spacious, light, with a dining-room table in the middle, a wardrobe on one side, and a sofa, an armchair and a little tea table on the other side. Real home atmosphere. “But, we are better than the ‘desperate housewives’”, says Svetlana, always in the mood for jokes, even though there aren’t many reasons for smiling.

“I look at life from the brighter side, as much as possible. I’m 45 years old, and I have only three months registered length of service, although I was working for ten years in different private firms, grocers, restaurants. My husband abused me physically, that’s why I left him. At first my daughter was at the NGO Shelter-centre with me, but she’s at home now with her brother and father. She complains that her father drinks and he doesn’t buy food for them. In all that chaos luckily my husband doesn’t abuse the children physically”, says Svetlana, who at the question “and what further on”, says reconcilably: “I’m not thinking about it”.

Life at the Shelter-centre goes on as usual, as much as it’s possible. A woman stays a woman wherever she is, with all her daily obligations and the wish to create a home out of her accommodation, even if it was a temporary one. In the rooms, by the windows, there are pots of flowers, the clothes are aired out in improvised drying rooms, and in the places where there are children, toys are inevitable.

In one of the rooms we met the young woman called Anica who is here with her fifteen-month-old daughter Sara. Sara doesn’t know another home. When Anica came to the Centre, she was only 40 days old. Anica apologizes to us, but she says she doesn’t want to talk about how and because of what she came here. It’s understandable.

“The woman has to be economically independent, or she might experience my destiny”, says the sixty-year-old Radmila who is at the Shelter-centre for the second time. “The first time I was at the Centre in 2001, when I couldn’t stand the abuse of my husband any more. He drinks a lot. My son and daughter are grown up and they have their own families. Still, in that 2001 after a few months I went back home because my husband was sick and I went back to look after him. I thought things would be different. But, as soon as he was better, he went back to his old habits. The alcohol is a bad thing. I couldn’t stand it any more, so I left. I left everything behind. Over forty years of labour, two-floor house, combines. My husband and I obtained a lot during our four-decade marriage, but now I’m not allowed to live in the house I was building. Here the women are nice, we support each other, all of us are here because of a trouble, not because of a beauty. I’m legally divorced from my husband, and the estate procedure is yet to come. But, one thing is the law, and another thing is the practice”, says Radmila while we are sitting on her bed in the room that she shares with two more women.

Days pass, there is no help, and the question “what further on” remains to float in the air.

“During this five years existence, 1,283 women stayed in the Centre. Most of them were at the age between 40 and 50, even though there were also women at the age of twenty, as well as over 60. There are currently twelve women here, and the capacity is 25. As to the educational structure, there were unqualified working women, unemployed housewives, but there were also university educated”, says Gabriela Spirkovska, lawyer at the NGO Shelter-centre. “Women come here in different ways. Some call on our telephone 070/520-639 or are accommodated here by the centres for social care.”

Spirkovska explains that, according to the rules, the women should stay at the Shelter-centre one year at the most, but, because of the general social-economic situation in the country, they stay longer. “We try to help them as much as possible. The rooms are given for use by the Ministry of labour and social policy, and the main donour is a Swedish foundation. We try to retrain them, to find them employment. They get employed as hygienists or housekeepers for older people. Those, on the other hand, who are university educated, manage the most easily because by the rule they are already employed and in some way economically independent. Beside our wish and persistence to help all women, many times we haven’t been able to do much in financial sense, because the salaries are low, and the rents are too high. Thus the question: “What further on” imposes by itself, explains Spirkovska.

Because of the bad economic situation, the women sometimes decide to return under the same roof with the violent husband, but after a while they return again to the Shelter-centre. “There are women who return to the Centre several times. The family violence is a vicious circle. First it starts with quarrels and mental abuse, then slaps and very rarely someone realizes at the beginning that some evil is entering the home. When the woman can’t take it any more, and that’s usually after many years of abuse, she decides to talk about her problem. Some of them come here, they get divorced, try to find their own path and a better life for herself and the children. Some don’t succeed in that, so they return to the violent husband hoping that it will be better, but again come across abuse. There were cases when the violent husband follows the woman to work, he causes problems, he inquires where she’s staying”, says Gabriela Spirkovska.

According to statistical data, in Macedonia every fourth woman is physically abused, and every third one suffers some kind of mental violence. “You don’t know what’s worse. Your soul hurts from the mental violence, and you can’t bear the physical pain, the strokes hurt”, says Radmila.

So far twelve women are provided for in a safe place. But still, once they will have to leave the Shelter-centre. What further on? What will happen with Lela, Nadica, Sara, what will happen with their mothers? Does the state take enough measures against the bullies in your home? M any questions, so far the answers are uncertain. It’s as uncertain as is the destiny of many women facing the choice between violence and poverty.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea, old people say…

Marija Kuka
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