By Andy Dolan
Last updated at 1:17 PM on 03rd August 2009
Supporters of a women's refuge were 'shocked and stunned' to be told it is being closed - because it does not cater for men.
The emergency shelter was set up 13 years ago for women and children and adult males are not allowed to stay.
But council officials have now ruled that, because it does not serve both sexes equally, the money used to run the home would be better spent on an 'outreach service' to help battered husbands as well as wives in their own homes.
Unequal: An emergency shelter set up for abused women has been forced to close because it does not cater for men
Brian Ellis, a councillor who helped set up the refuge in Weymouth, Dorset, in 1986, branded the move a 'step backwards'.
'It doesn't make sense,' he said. 'The women are there because of what men have done to them and their children. When people suffer from domestic violence they need an immediate escape and that's being taken away.'
Refuge, a charity for women and children affected by domestic violence, said: 'There are not enough refuges for women as it is.
'It's already difficult to get help and women often have to travel long distances. Losing beds that are already there is really devastating. It is a whole community that has lost that kind of safety.'
The shelter, which can accommodate six families, costs £82,780 a year to run.
The council is one of nine in Dorset clubbing together to spend £250,000 on finding consultants to tell them where to set up a gypsy camp.
The partnership said the refuge will close in March. A housing association which owns the building is working to find the women alternative accommodation.
One mother, 47, who used the refuge after being abused by her husband for years, said: 'I wasn't sure about where to go and what to do and then I found out about the Weycan't-mouth refuge. It was a place where I felt safe and I hadn't felt that for a long time.
'I can't believe they are going to close it - it's so important I can't even put it into words.'
A domestic violence outreach worker, who asked not to be named, said she was shocked and added: 'If there was a need for this 20 years ago then I see why not now. They are always full and there are women constantly trying to get in. I just don't understand it.'
In the last year, 6,323 people have reported domestic violence to Dorset Police.
Dorset County Council confirmed that one reason for closure was the lack of facilities for men.
A spokesman said: 'We want to make sure both men and women are catered for and we are not able to do that within the small building.'
Anthony Wilsdon, spokesman for Supporting People, said the new outreach service would help more people. He said: 'We have identified a need to support more people in their own homes.
'There is also a need to make support open to male victims and families with older male children.'
What are these women moaning about? They believe in equality, don't they?
If anyone has any doubt about the comparative levels of domestic violence perpetrated by women and men, they should do some proper research and find out the truth that the government, the mainstream media and feminists have been suppressing for decades - which is that women are just as violent as men; in fact marginally more so. A good place to start is to do an internet search on the name "Fiebert" and read everything you find there. And I mean everything. Go on, I dare you.
Whether closing a women's shelter is preferable to extending shelters to allow for male victims is open to argument; but what should not be, is the need for genuinely equal treatment for both sexes, which we emphatically do not have at present.
Too bad it isn't politically correct to acknowledge that men and women are different and have different needs.
Whilst I have sympathy for the women who have suffered domestic abuse, there is a significant problem of male abuse too, which is often overlooked. Instead of shutting the womens' refuge, the council should have insisted that a male refuge was also set up.
It's nice to see the Political correct chickens coming home to roost, though. Maybe it will open the eyes of the perpetrators of this nonsense to think things through fully in future.
The people who make these mad PC decisions should be named. Not just hide under some council committee. If they want us to think that they are doing the correct thing, they should be proud of their decision. They are basically trying to make a name for themselves within the council, so they too can get a pay rise and a bonus!!!!
Okay, at least men are beginning to at last get something in equality after 12 years of being shunned as second class by the government, councils, woman's rights and feminists. Like it or not men are battered as well as woman these days, it's just not publicized so much as women getting battered makes better head-lines so maybe look at the media why this is so. Woman are now not the quite stay at home housewife, and through wanting equality they have become the same aggressive person as there male counter-part as we are seeing on a daily basis.
when will people realise that all this political correctness and health and saftey rules are doing the opposite and causing friction and dangers.
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