Introduction

The anti-violence against women movement in the US gathered force in the 1970s, with the focus on assisting battered women and victims of rape to escape abusive relationships and seek justice (Bograd, 1988; Pence & Shepard, 1999; Schechter, 1982, 1988; Tierney, 1982). Internationally, this trajectory was repeated in various countries in the 1970s and 1980s, with the objectives of not only responding to individual violence against women but also establishing structural changes to equalize power between the genders. Quite rightly, the central motivation of the burgeoning movement in the US was to ensure safety as well as care for victims. Emerging from the feminist movement, much of the early endeavors were individual and collective efforts that received little or no official recognition or support at the time. The activism to end battering and rape developed its own feminist philosophy and interdisciplinary methods of intervention that gave primacy to victims’ voices and needs (French et al., 1998; Hall, 2015; Pence, 1999). The movement struggled to bring a common experience to the public that was hitherto considered private, and simultaneously challenged the state to take responsibility for the safety of its female citizenry. Activists realized that the movement must channel the formidable authority of the state to equalize the social power differentials between the genders (read: perpetrator and victim), which rendered women vulnerable to intimate abuse (for example, Anderson, 2005; Kaur & Garg, 2010; Naved & Persson, 2010; Pence & Paymar, 1993; World Health Organization, 2009). It is due to the pioneering activism of battered and sexually abused women and their allies that domestic relationships and women's right to be safe everywhere, especially in their homes, are no longer considered beyond the purview of the state.

As the state was urged to protect women from abuse by their loved ones through legal sanctions, women mobilized to establish safe residences and helplines for those who were fleeing violent relationships and homes (Barner & Carney, 2011; Saathoff & Stoffel, 1999; Tierney, 1982; Williamson & Abrahams, 2014). With the availability of state funding, these early shelters expanded into advocacy organizations to assist battered and sexually assaulted women to negotiate legal and social service systems that victims often found unsympathetic, baffling, and harsh.