THE ANTI-VIOLENCE CENTERS
WHAT ARE ANTI-VIOLENCE CENTERS?
Anti-violence centers are places where counseling is offered by welcoming women who have been subjected to violence. At the base of the work of the Centers there is a deep knowledge of the causes of violence and the consequences it has on the victims. Violence against women must be considered and analyzed taking into account the historical, social and political context of gender relations.
WHEN THEY WERE BORN? BECAUSE?
The Anti-violence Centers constitute the most coordinated and organized response to the phenomenon of violence against women in Italy, of which they represent their rights and interests.
These are relatively recent realities: the first anti-violence centers in Italy date back to the early 90s in the Anglo-Saxon countries, in the 80s in northern Europe. Until then, abused women had no place to turn to be hosted or simply listened to and supported in their rights. There were no information campaigns, much less reports in newspapers or on television; divorce was still a rarity, moreover very stigmatizing for women who therefore remained trapped in violent relationships, with no way out.
Their origin is linked to the women's liberation movement of the XNUMXs, which developed internationally, and to the intense political activity that characterized it. The roots of the movement had been self-awareness groups, in which women shared life stories and experiences and built the historical-political analysis of male domination and female subordination.
In feminist self-awareness groups, the phenomenon of intimate partner violence emerged predominantly but was not enough: hence the idea of establishing shelters where female victims could hide and protect themselves in order to start a life free from violence again. A revolution that challenged the absolute, secular and immutable power that men exercised in the family, pillar and nucleus of society. Wives who decided to leave home, without warning, to move in with groups of women in sheltered homes, run by women only, were actually attacking the framework of patriarchal sexual politics.
The speed with which women activated anti-violence centers and shelter houses all over the world is difficult to understand in today's time when political action is very weakened. From the birth of the first women's home in Italy in 1989, in less than a decade, 70 anti-violence centers were born in Italy which organized for the first time in Ravenna in 1988 a national convention of anti-violence centers from which a platform of shared political practices emerged. .
In all these years, the Italian Centers have debated on how to create independent services that are attentive to responding to the needs of women and children, victims of male violence, but above all on how to force institutions to put actions against violence.
More information: