Women Abuse

In 2007, the 1st for Women Insurance Trust donated R2.4 million to People Opposing Woman Abuse (POWA) for the establishment of the first, Gauteng-based, second stage housing facility - the 1st for Women POWA House.

A second stage housing facility enables a woman to set herself and her children up in a new life, free from her former abusive relationship.

Women who are abused are in an extremely precarious situation, often requiring alternative, emergency accommodation to escape their abusive partners.

In an ideal world, perpetrators should have to leave the house and allow the woman and children to remain in the home. However, this state of affairs rarely exists and normally women have to escape their homes, often under circumstances of extreme stress and violence, and find their own accommodation.

In order for abused women not to have to return home to abusive circumstances, they require longer term shelter.

First stage housing, which accommodates women for about three months, partially fulfils this need and is the most common form of shelter being offered around the country.

Second stage housing provides longer term accommodation for abused women once they leave first stage shelters. This form of shelter is virtually non-existent in South Africa despite the fact that that the need for it is so acute.

The launch of the 1st for Women POWA House took place in 2009.

For more information about how you or your Company can get involved in supporting the 1st for Women POWA House, please contact fwitbooi@tsi.org.za