Little has been done to create new measures for victims of violence or to improve the quality of existing public agencies in Norway. The problems of women exposed to violence seem to be more or less left to be solved by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) through shelters for battered women. Violence against women has been politically acknowledged as a serious social problem for more than two decades. Despite this, there is a long way to go before one can say that services for battered women are satisfactory. What kinds of measures have been taken to tackle the problem during this time? What are the current challenges of working with violence against women? And finally, is there any reason to look to Norway to learn how to deal with problems of violence?

This chapter describes the development in the field of violence against women during the past 20 years. The aim is to illustrate how political objectives do not in themselves necessarily result in definite measures to solve problems, and, furthermore, how an issue such as men's violence has to be put on the political agenda over and over again before real change can be achieved. The analysis is mainly based on two studies on battered women's shelters in Norway carried out with a 16-year interval (Jonassen, 1987; Jonassen and Stefansen, 2003).

What measures have been provided for women exposed to violence in Norway?

The first shelter for battered women opened up in Oslo by a feminist group and with public funding in 1978. Within a few years, the voices that claimed that women's groups were exaggerating when they presented the extent of violence against women declined. Local women's groups belonging to different political parties challenged their fellow politicians to address the problem. Before long, there was an agreement across political party lines to put the problem on the national political agenda. Women employees (and some men) in state and local authorities showed their solidarity with the women's movement and, later on, the shelter movement, by supporting the demands for establishing shelters. This broad support made things easier when members of the shelter movement applied for funding and asked for cooperation with established public services and other public bodies.