Domestic Violence
The Mary Foundation’s specific initiatives to address domestic violence encompass:
• Backpacks - for children at women´s shelters. All children who take residence with their mother at a women’s shelters in Denmark, Greenland and Faroe Islands receive a backpack. Based on expert advices 6 backpacks for different age groups and gender have been developed, containing among other things basic necessities such as a toothbrush, a towel, pen and paper for school, as well as a teddy bear or a locked diary. Every year 2.500 bags are sent out from the project which springs from a cooperation between the Mary Foundation, the LEGO Foundation and LOKK (Danish National Organisation of Shelters for Battered Women and their Children).
An evaluation of the project from 2010 by SFI – The Danish National Centre for Social Research shows an wide satisfaction with the bags, and shows that the bags serve as a symbol that everybody has the rights to a life without violence and are also used as an approach for the shelter professionals to address the issues of violence in the child’s life.
• Advice for Life provides free social, legal and financial advisory services for women who are vulnerable and affected by violence. This takes place at the premises of Mothers’ Help (Mødrehjælpen) in Aarhus and Copenhagen. Professional advisors from Nykredit volunteer as mentors offering basic, financial counselling and helping women to regain the power to get back on their feet.
Since October 2010 we began expanding the project to Danish women’s shelters, and currently offer Advice for Life at shelters in Aarhus, Elsinore, Esbjerg, Roenne , Naestved and Kolding.
The project is a joint undertaking of the Mary Foundation, Nykredit Group, the association Østifterne and Mothers’ Help for part of the project – and LOKK and local law firms for the part at women’s shelters.
In addition to these two specific projects, the Mary Foundation convened a Conference on Domestic Violence in 2008 and on Dating Violence in 2009, and has also published a children’s book in Danish and Greenlandic on violence at home entitled “Fantasy Stories”.
Everybody has the right to a life without violence. Violence is never acceptable and can never be justified.
“Statistics show that violence breeds violence, and as such, the focus of the conference is on breaking that circle of violence. Because violence – in any shape or form – is never acceptable and can never be justified. Everybody has the right to belong. And everybody has the right to a life free of violence.” Stated by HRH Crown Princess Mary on the occasion of the Mary Foundation’s Conference on Domestic Violence 2008.
The Mary Foundation wishes:
• To create and take part in a debate on domestic violence, so that it is not just a problem of the family concerned, but indeed a collective concern.
• To make clear that violence is never acceptable and can never be justified.
• To foster understanding of the repetitive nature of the cycle of violence and of its consequences throughout all stages of life, from early childhood through youth into adult life.
• To give women and children weighed down by the heavy and dark secret that is domestic violence a voice and a chance to live without beatings and social isolation.
The Mary Foundation’s endeavours in this field are based on national research on violence within the family. In this regard, experts generally acknowledge that the incidence of domestic violence including unreported cases – i.e. the full story and actual extent of the problem – is likely to be much higher than official figures, since the issue is so taboo-ridden and the victims so socially isolated.
