Officials: ‘Woman's state' curbs domestic violence

In High Point North Carolina, domestic violence cases dramatically dropped after the city adopted a “focused deterrence” approach. “Where the city once saw between three and five domestic homicides a year, it has only had two in the last five years (one involved a couple from out of town). The last domestic homicide in High Point was in 2015.” The approach has worked in other cities as well. Now, Spartanburg County is the first to implement it at the county level.

The number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada is high, so a group of Indigenous women formed an organization called Power Our Women (POW) to teach other Indigenous women across the country self-defense skills. Participants talk about their cultures, learn physical self-defense, build confidence, and learn situational awareness. Participants describe the program as healing but difficult. POW has now reached more than 5,000 women across Canada, including remote areas in northern Manitoba.

The Minsk-based organization Radislava runs a house for women and children who have experienced domestic abuse. In a culture and a country that have yet to protect survivors of abuse, this house runs on privacy and anonymity, for safety’s sake. Radislava does more than provide shelter – it also provides psychological and legal support and organizes advocacy events. Since its creation, the home has seen 70% of clients create new lives for themselves.

La Ciudad de Las Mujeres or the City of Women was built by displaced women in Colombia. They are the survivors of violence from the Colombian war. “Today the neighbourhood has its own infrastructure, housing almost 500 people with a school, all built by the women.” The organization has also established a credit fund for micro-enterprises, a brick factory, a community restaurant, and a childcare center.

A community-based cooperative of gender-based-violence survivors in Kasuwan Magani, trained by the NGO EWEI through its "Together We Can" project, has established a local safe space and referral network, which has improved reporting and response to sexual and gender-based violence in a rural Kaduna community.

Nantes, France has implemented a comprehensive city-wide strategy to combat gender inequality through multiple coordinated initiatives. The centerpiece is Citad'elles, a, 24/7 shelter that centralizes 18 nonprofit organizations offering legal, psychological, and medical services for women experiencing violence, eliminating the need to travel to multiple locations across the city. Since opening in 2019, Citad'elles has served over 5,500 women, averaging three new users daily and 450 follow-up appointments monthly.

The Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency (DSVA) provides comprehensive survivor support services including legal aid, medical care, shelters, and prevention programs, successfully building public trust and securing 140+ convictions while reaching 6.3 million people through awareness campaigns, though significant gaps remain between the 8,692 reported cases and actual access to justice and support services.

One Safe Place — also known collectively as a Family Justice Center — is a holistic care center for violence survivors that aims to be a one-stop shop for support services like legal aid, medical care, social workers, mental health support, groceries, child care and job training. One Safe Place opened in July 2022. The 44,000-square-foot facility is one of the largest Family Justice Centers in the world and has served more than 3,000 people, the majority of whom are domestic violence survivors and their children.

Dvert is a partnership between Cincinnati police and Women Helping Women, a social services agency that puts domestic-violence survivors in touch with an advocate from the moment they report abuse. Advocates can provide for survivors' immediate needs, including childcare and safe shelter. They provide counseling and support to survivors throughout the prosecution of a case, should the survivor choose to pursue that remedy. More women have found the strength to pursue prosecutions, which advocates hope will ultimately keep more women safer than if they drop a complaint and reconcile with an abusive partner.

In the Kutupalong Refugee Camp in Bangladesh, Rohingya women are overcoming the societal restraints that bound them at home in Myanmar and becoming leaders and change-makers in their community. Despite resistance from the men, hundreds of women in the camp banded together to form a group called Shanti Mohila. This allowed them to push for more peace and justice and issues like domestic violence, and they even received support from Legal Action Worldwide to prosecute crimes against the Rohingya people.