Too few women’s shelters in Germany: They feel abandoned

Einmal am Tag muss Sara Becker eine Frau in Not abweisen. „Das ist ein richtiges Scheißgefühl. Im Hinterkopf lauert immer die Angst, dass diese Absage für eine Frau tödlich enden kann“, sagt Becker, Sozialarbeiterin in einem Frauenhaus in Süddeutschland. Becker heißt eigentlich anders. Um sich und ihre Klientinnen zu schützen, möchten sie anonym bleiben.

Becker telefoniert täglich mit Frauen, die vor einem gewalttätigen Mann fliehen wollen. Wenn die Frauen im Internet eine bundesweite Übersichtskarte für Frauenhäuser öffnen, leuchten ihnen viele rote Kreuze entgegen: keine freien Plätze mehr. Diese Frauen müssten dann in eine Notunterkunft für Obdachlose – oder zurück zum Partner.

Frauenhäuser sollen ein Zufluchtsort für gewaltbetroffene Frauen und ihre Kinder sein. Jede Stunde werden mehr als 20 Frauen in Deutschland Opfer von häuslicher Gewalt. Das geht aus dem aktuellen Lagebild des Bundeskriminalamts im Juni (BKA) hervor. Demnach ist die Anzahl der Fälle häuslicher Gewalt im Vergleich zum Vorjahr um 6,5 Prozent gestiegen. Jeden zweiten Tag wird eine Frau von ihrem ehemaligen oder jetzigen Partner getötet. Das Hilfetelefon wird so oft angerufen wie noch nie.

Nach Angaben des Vereins Frauenhauskoordinierung gibt es in Deutschland derzeit rund 400 Schutzräume. Jährlich finden demnach mindestens 13.000 Frauen mit 15.000 Kindern Schutz in Frauenhäusern.

In Deutschland werden zusätzlich rund 14.000 Frauenhausplätze benötigt, um die Istanbul-Konvention zu erfüllen – dafür hat der Europarat Deutschland im Jahr 2022 gerügt. Die Istanbul-Konvention ist ein Übereinkommen des Europarates zur Bekämpfung von Gewalt gegen Frauen und seit 2018 geltendes Recht in Deutschland. Im Koalitionsvertrag hat die Ampelregierung festgehalten, sie „vorbehaltslos und wirksam“ umsetzen zu wollen.

Little has happened since then: instead, responsibilities are unclear, laws are missing, and funds are sometimes not even accessed due to bureaucratic hurdles. What remains are women who cannot find refuge from violence and women’s shelter staff who are overwhelmed.

On November 16th last year, Family Minister Lisa Paus took the podium in the Bundestag. The occasion was a debate on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25th. The Green politician wore a purple dress and matching pumps, the color being considered feminist. Paus said: “We want to finally close the gaps in the network of women’s shelters and counseling centers.” And: “The traffic light coalition is serious.” Her voice sounds calm as she once again promises to implement the Istanbul Convention. She wants to achieve this with the so-called Violence Assistance Act: every woman in need of protection should then have the right to a place. That is at least the plan. The MPs from the traffic light factions applaud.

Paus has repeatedly assured that she wants to improve the situation in women’s shelters – most recently in response to the increased figures on domestic violence that were published in June.

From the perspective of women’s shelters, the situation in the shelters has not improved, neither as a result of Paus’ promise nor as a result of the Council of Europe’s reprimand. According to Becker, new women’s shelters are being opened or the number of places increased, but these are far from meeting demand. The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Social Affairs states that 100 new places have been created in the last ten years. There are now 855 places in Baden-Württemberg, whereas 2,825 are needed according to the Istanbul Convention.

Anne Schultz says: “Nothing has changed.” She also works at a women’s shelter in Baden-Württemberg and her real name is different. Last year, the women’s shelter had to turn away around 60 women, some with their children, because the shelter was full.

116 women were turned away because they could not afford the place, says Schultz. This is because women who are not entitled to social assistance have to pay for their place themselves. This affects about a quarter of the women in the women’s shelter, for example students, asylum seekers, women with sufficient income or assets. Assets include, for example, a house that the woman owns jointly with her husband.

Currently, women’s shelters are financed by funds from the federal government, states, municipalities, and from women’s own contributions and donations. The states themselves decide how much support they give to women’s shelters. According to the responsible ministries, only in Schleswig-Holstein, Berlin and Bremen do women not have to pay any contributions themselves.

The amount of the contributions varies from municipality to municipality. In Rhineland-Palatinate, self-paying women have to pay between six and twelve euros, while a stay in Baden-Württemberg costs up to 109 euros per day. A day in the women’s shelter in Stuttgart costs 66 euros per person. For a woman with two children, that is around 1,400 euros per week, and the women often have to stay there for several months. They often have to continue paying their rent because they had to flee unexpectedly.

Stefanie Knaab says: “Criminals have their place in prison paid for by the state, but women affected by violence have to pay for their place in a women’s shelter themselves – how can that be?” Knaab was herself affected by domestic violence and founded an association that, among other things, offers an app for victims of domestic violence.

According to Knaab, the cost of a place in a women’s shelter is often a reason why victims cannot leave their violent partner. Sylvia Haller from the Central Information Center for Autonomous Women’s Shelters says: “Protection from violence is not a social benefit.” A few weeks ago, the NGO launched a petition calling on the federal government to implement the planned violence assistance law quickly and consistently “with sufficient federal funds.”

Some women’s shelters are desperate because it is not clear who is responsible for funding. “The Ministry of Social Affairs in Baden-Württemberg says they are not responsible for funding because the federal government’s coalition agreement provides for a uniform solution,” says women’s shelter employee Schultz. But there is still no draft of the promised law on assistance to violence, which is also intended to standardize funding. When asked, Paus’s Ministry for Family Affairs said that the law is currently being worked on and that a first official draft is planned for this summer.

So far, the ministry has only sent a “discussion draft” of the law to cities, municipalities and umbrella organizations, as the “Netzpolitik” platform reported. This is a preliminary stage to an official draft bill. The family ministry says it wants to pass the law during this legislative period.

Silvia Breher, the Union’s family policy spokeswoman, has doubts about this timetable. The project is being postponed again and again, and the question of financing does not seem to have been resolved. The existing programs are being “only neglected”: “It gives the impression that Federal Minister for Women Lisa Paus is not taking the issue of violence against women seriously.”

The Ministry of Family Affairs is currently still providing funding through the “Together against violence against women” program. This was launched by the previous government and will expire at the end of the year. In the first few years, not all of the funds were used. This was the result of an inquiry by the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag. Of the planned 30 million euros, just under 17.9 million euros were paid out in 2022. Several women’s shelters criticized the bureaucratic effort involved in submitting these applications, saying they did not have enough staff. “Our actual task of supporting women and children in coping with traumatic experiences is increasingly taking a back seat,” says Anne Schultz.

Originally, 30 million euros were to be made available annually for the program, but the Ministry of Family Affairs had cut the funds for 2023 by ten million euros. The ministry justified this with the austerity requirements of the Ministry of Finance. According to the ministry, 30 million euros will again be available this year. This does not meet the need, the funds have apparently been used up. The ministry’s website states: “Due to the admission freeze, no new funding requests can currently be included in the process.”

From the perspective of women’s shelters, the rules that are not based on practice often make the money useless. For example, the funding would be used to pay for the construction of new houses, but not the associated costs for more staff, equipment and therapies. “There is no legal basis that specifically regulates who is responsible for what,” says Becker. At the moment, they are constantly being referred back and forth, and authorities are sometimes fighting in court over their jurisdiction. “In the end, it’s always just about money,” complains Becker. The women in particular suffer from this: “Instead of stabilizing themselves, they have to deal with bureaucratic stuff.”

The shelters are also asking themselves the question: where will they get money for extensions and renovations after the funding program ends? When asked, the Ministry of Family Affairs said that after the program ends, the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Construction (BMWSB) would be responsible for the financial aid. The aid would then come from existing state funding programs for social housing. For women’s shelter employees like Becker, this means changing contacts. Becker fears even more paperwork and stress.

In order to implement the Istanbul Convention, the Ampel coalition has promised to set up a coordination office. It is part of the planned violence assistance law. This office is to develop strategies to prevent violence against women. A so-called development team has been working on the facility for over a year – so far without any visible results.

“This is a scandal,” says Gökay Akbulut, women’s policy spokeswoman for the Left Party. The behavior shows “how little importance” the government attaches to the implementation of the Istanbul Convention. She criticizes the fact that women’s shelters have been neglected for decades and that the traffic light coalition does nothing to change that.

The employees of the women’s shelters are left with the impression that, apart from making promises on action days, the federal government doesn’t care much about them. “There is no lobby for women,” says Schultz. But these demands have been the same for decades. “That is what is really wearing us down,” says Becker. “We still have a very, very long way to go.”