‘They gave me a chance’: refuge where abused Azerbaijani women find hope | Global development

A green-painted four-storey home close to the principle bus station on the outskirts of Baku is the place Roza Huseynova and her youngsters discovered refuge. “Till I got here right here, I believed there have been no good folks on this life,” says Huseynova, 38, who escaped an abusive marriage final yr.

“However my youngsters and I’ve discovered methods to really feel pleasure, methods to chortle,” she says.

The shelter is run by Mehriban Zeynalova, 66. “I might have by no means acquired an ID by myself,” says Huseynova. “My husband would by no means have let me change the college of my youngsters.”

Home abuse is estimated to account for five% of crimes in Azerbaijan, and femicide is on the rise, however a tradition of secrecy means the true statistics are unknown.

“When a lady is overwhelmed, she is anticipated to maintain silent and never give away household secrets and techniques,” says Zeynalova.

There may be typically nowhere to go. In 2010, the legislation demanded the institution of state-run shelters, however little occurred. The State Committee for Household, Girls and Youngsters Affairs admits as a lot, whereas including that even many of the 13 charity-run shelters don’t meet correct standards.

Zeynalova’s home is painted mild inexperienced, with a backyard and partitions adorned with cartoon characters. It’s now dwelling to 60 girls and kids.

The kitchen and school rooms are on the bottom ground with workplaces for social employees and attorneys above. The ladies and kids have dormitories on the second ground, whereas the attic has been transformed right into a play and exercise zone.

Zeynalova has moved her shelter 5 occasions over time and there have been setbacks. Restrictions on international funding of charities and different organisations launched in 2015 virtually resulted in closure however Zeynalova borrowed cash to purchase land and construct the primary two flooring. Then she put out a name for assistance on the shelter’s Fb web page.

“One individual introduced bricks, one other some sand, the third wooden, and so forth,” she says. “I offered my automobile and a few stuff to pay the builders.” In September 2020, the shelter was accomplished.

Now the Worldwide Group for Migration pays workers salaries, whereas Zeynalova appeals for donations through Fb for payments and meals. She makes use of her personal pension and the stipend she will get because the chairperson of Azerbaijan’s Basis for Help to Victims of Human Trafficking.

Zeynalova was herself homeless for seven years, two of them on the streets with two youngsters aged seven and 6.

After leaving her abusive husband, she misplaced all her cash to fraud after which the roof over their heads was taken away when the buddy the household had been staying with died.

“We stayed at one other buddy’s home however sooner or later he had visitors and didn’t allow us to in till they left, “ she says. “We have been exterior within the chilly, and my daughter requested if we’d ever have our personal lights on.”

Zeynalova moved her household between the homes of pals and relations after which they slept in lodge yards or the doorway halls of condominium blocks. Baku, on the Caspian Sea and licked by the khazri, a freezing wind from the north, is a chilly metropolis in winter.

“In the future the door of an entrance corridor was not open, the wind was so sturdy that I hugged the youngsters and howled,” she says. “I used to be so helpless. These have been onerous occasions.”

Her daughter Elnura, now 33, remembers all of the entrances the place they used to cover and the benches the place they slept.

“As soon as a person invited us to spend an evening at his home,” she says. “My mom was scared, not for herself however for us. We barely survived. I may collapse from starvation.”

Whereas she was married, Zeynalova had been invited to a gathering of a girls’s rights organisation however didn’t dare go. In 1998 she was given a job as undertaking supervisor with the identical group, coping with home abuse. She slept within the workplace together with her son, Khalid, however Elnura went to dwell together with her grandmother in Ganja, 190 miles (300km) west of Baku.

“They put two chairs collectively and slept on them till mum obtained her first wage and acquired folding beds,” says her daughter, who wouldn’t see her mom for 5 years.

By 2002, Zeynalova had saved sufficient for a flat and despatched for Elnura. “For us, it was greater than an condominium,” she says. “It was ours.”

Nevertheless it was extra, changing into “Təmiz Dünya” (Clear World), offering shelter for victims of home abuse and in 20 years has grown to serving to 650 girls and kids yearly.

“Not solely did she get herself again on to her toes however she helped others. For me, she is an instance of staying human. Though she was striving to realize all the things by herself, she has saved this sense of humanity, her readiness to assist,” says Elnura, a authorized marketing consultant for the shelter.

Almaz Makhmudova, 44, turned up there final July. She suffered greater than 20 years of assaults and insults till the day her husband was arrested over a stabbing and he or she took her likelihood to depart.

She is particularly grateful for the care of her youngsters. “As soon as my husband hit my youthful son, Aydin, and his chin fractured. Remedy is ongoing, though we want costly surgical procedure. In any other case when he grows up, he will likely be disfigured. They discovered a very good physician and also will cowl the prices.”

There’s a rehabilitation course of for every newcomer and authorized, psychological and medical help if wanted.

“Some are reluctant to speak, withdrawing into themselves,” says Yagut Mammedyarova, 61, a social employee who has been working with Zeynalova for 25 years. “Or, some say one factor throughout our first assembly and one other throughout the next ones.”

When belief is established and the lady feels stronger, she is helped to discover a job.

Afsana Hasanova, 30, began working in a grocery store whereas staying within the shelter and preventing to have the courts order her husband, a playing addict, to return her three youngsters. She was profitable eventually and Hasanova was in a position to go away the shelter a few months in the past and hire a flat close by.

“This shelter is the principle cause I survived,” she says. “My thoughts was a clean sheet of paper after I appeared right here. They gave me an opportunity to put in writing on that paper once more.”