'Govt must help women’s refuge’

Press, 9 November 1978, Page 6

' Govt must help women’s refuge’

By

LEONE STEWART

I “Why doesn’t the GovernIment recognise family violence as a national probI lem?” Erin PiZzey, a British 'campaigner for battered 'women, has been asking many groups during her visit to New Zealand. “The Australian Government is way ahead of you in Government aid to women’s refuge centres.” said Ms Pizzey in Christchurch yesterday.

If the estimates of one in every six or seven New Zealand families affected by violence were correct, Government funding was essential. The Government now seemed to be sheltering i behind voluntary groups. It' was using their efforts as an I excuse for not meeting the) very obvious needs. Ms Pizzey has a clear) message to women who run ■ refuge centres: “Open your' (doors to all women, share) I the problem with men, fight! !to make your Government! accept this problem and pro-1 vide the proper finance,) without strings.” A British journalist, Kath- j arine Whitehorn, has written) that it is thanks to Erin Piz-1 zey’s tireless crusade that) wife-battering is now recog-' nised as something other i than a part of the normal' pattern of man-woman rela-l tionships in Britain.

Ms Pizzey’s visit to Newi Zealand is sponsored by the! Mental Health Foundation. Since she founded the) Chiswick Women’s Aid movement in 1971, her battling spirit and articulation of a concealed social ill has made her a public figure in Britain. She and her staff have fought countless legal battles to maintain their open-door policy. Ms Pizzey will not turn women and children away. Accusations of over-crowding have led to) much-needed grants’ being) withdrawn, long legal battles) with the authorities and I emotional wear and tear. “Never give up, just battle on” is her motto. Not one to be intimidated, she has had | much support from the Britlish press. Women journalists ) have supported her cause. | (The public has responded) (with generous donations. ) 1 “Scream Quietly or the) I Neighbours will Hear You,”) la book which Erin Pizzey) (wrote in 1974, sold well. It) I tells the story of the modest! ibeginings of Chiswick, now I world-renowned. The com-1 raunity, get-together for) women to chat became a! refuge centre when a bruised and battered wife said noone wanted to listen to her. From Erin Pizzeys initial outrage has grown the refuge centre where dormitories accommodate up to 80 mothers and children. In the

i cramped chaos of a huge, (extended family the women recover their self-esteem and j learn to run their own lives. ‘Many then progress to halfway houses. Some will never recover sufficiently to leave. Stephen Harper and Brian Segal, social workers, have come to New Zealand with Erin Pizzey, as well as Tina Wood, a legal adviser. The young men run the special playgroups to help young people ovecome anger and Ibotlled-up resentments, and |to form loving relationships. ( A witty woman as big as j her reputation, Erin Pizzey I takes a positive approach to a problem many people find overwhelmingly depressing. She believes in the healing powers of love, warmth, tolerance and companionship | fostered at Chiswick. The i understanding of battered (women and children she was (promoting should be extend,(ed to violent men, she said. I “Many of them want help, ) too. You look at the women (and know they can have some future with their children. What is there for the men? No matter whether a( i violent man marries a good, lor a bad woman he will bat:-! ter her.” she said. Hopes are held for establishing a home for men, run i by the Little Sisters of; Mercy in Britain. The; address of the Chiswick ref-( uge is not kept secret. Hus-) bands or boyfriends can call:

any time. “The power of the large group of women is sufficient deterrent to violence,” said Ms Pizzey. “Often we forget to lock the door. We are not paranoid about the men.”

Erin Pizzey believes there are two types of women who are battered. Initially she believed all battered women were trapped in violent marriages by children | and circumstances, their I self-determination gradually 'drained. She has helped hun- ' dreds of these women to a (new, independent life. But the overflowing house ; at 369 Chiswick High Road (has come to cater mostly for I what she describes as “vio-jlence-prone women.” These I are women who have grown up on a diet of violence. I They are hooked on violence, needing the “high.” j “They play murder games, going back eight or nine ) times,” said Ms Pizzey. “We (have to work on them to (produce change. I always tell them 1 know they are (going because they are ! bored; that they are going to ; he killed.” ) Erin Pizzey sees this as a: I death wish; the return to; violence a ’form of suicide.) (“Some women hate them-; (selves so much that instead) ■of killing themselves they; ; put themselves in the post-1 (tion where they will be mur-i idered.” ■ When, in spite of Chis-1

wick, they do go back, Erin Pizzey bears the blame. “I always feel that we have failed them. We haven’t given them enough warmth and support to make a real alternative.”

Among violent men she i also finds two common i denominators in background. The male child brought up in a violent home, or the spoilt child whose emotional development is arrested, ‘‘a six-foot three-year-old.”

A prison in Scotland runs the only socialising programme in which Erip Pizzey has any faith. There convicted murderers learn to resolve their inner and outer conflicts in a freedom which often causes public and official outrage. “They are always in trouble because people’s attitude is that if you do something wrong you must be punished. Violence has to be loved away,” she said.

! “Infernal Child.” just rei leased in New Zealand, is i Erin Pizzey’s autobiography. iThe story of a difficult child i whose autocratic diplomat i father moved the family around the world, it tells! “What it means to be a child in a violent relationship.”

"We cannot treat battered women and children in isolation,” she said. “That is why Chiswick Women’s Aid is soon to become Chiswick Family Rescue.”