Basic principles
The autonomous Pinzgau Women’s Refuge Centre operates on the following principles:
Quick access to emergency aid
Long-winded formalities and lengthy waiting times for appointments etc. will be avoided if possible.
Confidential handling of information
The Women’s Refuge Centre is sworn to secrecy. No information will be passed on without the consent of the concerned party.
Commitment to women
The staff supporting the threatened/abused women, represent those externally and help them to attain their entitlement.
Women help women
Women’s Refuge Centres are organisations which are run by women and are a place where women can be advised and supported by other women. Generally speaking, men are not permitted inside the Women’s Refuge Centre.
Learning to help yourself
The women affected won’t be nursed. The staff however, will try to help them embrace their wants and interests, and to build a self-determined life, without being dependent on men.
Independence
Women’s Refuge Centres are run by private, non-profit and unbiased women’s associations in order to keep the inhibitions threshold for those affected at a minimum and to ensure their anonymity.
A feminist and women-conscious approach
Women’s Refuge Centres are trying to draw attention to the structural violence that extends across all branches of society and brings about an imbalance of power, discrimination, victimization and exploitation of women and children.
Self-governed Women's refuges centres Austria, information centre which disapproves of violence (2008), booklet.
Vienna: Self-governed Women's refuge centres Austria, information centre which disapproves of violence.