Refuge for abused women in Malaysia

I met Lin three years ago, on my first day with Women’s Aid Organisation, Malaysia’s largest service provider for domestic violence survivors. Abused by her husband, she was seeking help.

Soon after she arrived, we heard a man screaming outside our one-storey office. Through a window, I saw a man whose face was covered in blood. Lin said he was her friend, and we let him in.

The man had been waiting in the car, when Lin’s husband and father appeared and beat him up. I was stunned. I could barely imagine how Lin must have felt – to be in an abusive marriage, to have her father side with her abuser, and to be intimidated when seeking help.

Hundreds of thousands of women in Malaysia have similar stories to tell. A study by Universiti Sains Malaysia released last year estimated that nine out of every hundred ever-partnered women in Peninsular Malaysia have experienced domestic violence. Each story is a painful reminder of the urgent commitment needed to end violence against women.

Domestic violence is not only widespread, it is complex. To end domestic violence, we need to transform systems—review laws and policies, improve enforcement, and change attitudes.

And while we have seen some encouraging developments in recent years, we have a long way to go.

Special legal protection for domestic violence survivors does not apply to survivors who are not married to their abusive intimate partners. There are no standard operating procedures to help multiple agencies work together to cooperatively response to domestic violence cases. Front-line responders are not given nearly enough resources to effectively handle domestic violence cases.

We are advocating reforms to ensure that the hundreds of thousands of women like Lin receive the high quality services they deserve when faced with violence, and reforms that will help prevent violence in the first place.

We are working on it, but we need your help getting there.

Your support will not only help us provide vital services for survivors of domestic violence, it will enable us to continue advocating for better systems to end violence against women.

9% of ever-partnered women in Malaysia have previously, or are currently, victimized by domestic violence. Every year, too many women in Malaysia experience violence from people they live with: whether husband, partner, family member or employer. It occurs across the social strata, in cities and in rural areas. It is preventing the enjoyment of safety and wellbeing for tens of thousands of women.

WAO wants to progressively build our capacity to respond to the above. We now want to broaden our work, particularly from a Services perspective. In preparation for this, strengthening of WAO’s core fundamentals is critical. The main emphasis will be placed on kick-starting this strengthening process in 2015, thereby paving the way for up-scaling WAO’s work in 2016.

Women’s Aid Organisation currently provides one of the main DV-focused advocacy, shelter, reintegration and case management services in Malaysia. Our advocacy and services have always been designed to strengthen state policy and access to state protection, enhance public awareness of DV and gender equality issues, as well to support our clients through the challenge of evolving from domestic violence victims into empowered survivors.

In reviewing the impact of our work so far, the team was very inspired and moved by the 9%. It begs the question whether 800,000 Malaysian women experiencing or previously experiencing domestic violence amounts to a public health crisis. It also therefore begs the question what part we could play in ensuring the scale of our advocacy and services is increased to better meet this crisis.

Our answer is: Responding to more women within the 9% must be one of WAO’s long-term goals. But before WAO can broaden the scope of our services and sharpen the edge of our advocacy, some key institutional building measures need to be successfully implemented first.

Over a month-long period, consultations took place within the WAO team to consider what works, what does not and, most important, what else can be done for us to make the most significant impact and achieve the most positive change. We have drawn from the experience and expertise of colleagues, our own tacit knowledge, consulted expert papers, research and internally available data. We have learned from this, reflected on past and current practices and examined strategies that have worked in other contexts both locally and internationally.

While the service currently provided by the WAO Social Work team is multi-faceted, intensive, frequently ground breaking and littered with success stories, it is principally focused on our shelter and its residents. We need to ensure pre-crisis and post-crisis services are also in place and functioning well. While our Advocacy activities have led to high-recognition of WAO, strengthening of legislation and ensuring public visibility of DV issues, stronger synergy with our service delivery aspect, stronger links with state responders and deeper community-level awareness is required. This could be achieved, for instance through vigorous community-based education and response, and police training initiatives.

All of this must meet non-profit benchmarks. In sum, while our successes have been many, expansion beyond our current operating framework is the right thing to do, and this is the right time to initiate it. But, before we expand, we need to prepare the groundwork.

Reaching Out to the Nine Percent is our response to the above.

Links:

• Women's Aid Organisation