Human security and women’s security reality in Northwest Russia - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 239

institutionalizing a dependable system of response. To this end they interacted
with victims and local stakeholders, and in this work they were inventive in
adjusting to local challenges while facing economic constraints and not least
continuing difficulties of gaining support and legitimacy of their work.
Local security practices on violence against
women
The emergence of non-state crisis centres in Russia in the 1990s represented
a challenge to traditional practices of silencing the issue of domestic violence.
The state, with its power to define legitimate social concerns and problems,
dominates decisions relevant to addressing women's security situations, and
this position was challenged by the emergence of non-state crisis centres.
Women's groups have played an important role as key narrators of the prob-
lem of violence against women in Russia, as they publically described and
mapped knowledge of anonymous victims' experiences, and also registered
how public servants responded to the victims. Notwithstanding these impor-
tant tasks, non-state crisis centres in Northwest Russia were preoccupied with
their meagre financial situation. To begin their work and set up the required
infrastructure, the funding that crisis centres received in the initial phase from
international donors but also infrastructural support from local authorities
was essential to their establishment. In contrast to the more generous finan-
cial situation in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the work of these local crisis
centres in Northwest Russia during the 2000s became characterized by a lack
of resources that impeded the predictability in their work. Some crisis cen-
tre representatives even expressed reservation regarding resources from local
authorities. They couched their reservation in an attitude of social responsi-
bility towards the budget limits of the municipality while at the same time
claiming how pressing the needs of the crisis centre were. Despite the difficult
economic situation, where the women's groups continued their work, their
position, which rested on prestige, was a possibility for affecting views on the
issue of violence against women - to establish recognition of their work and
the suffering of the victims. The logic of their work - their security practice
- was embedded in a struggle for the acceptance of their claim: that violence
against women is an issue of women's personal security.
There is nevertheless a lack of crisis centres and shelters. In Northwest
Russia only two crisis centres offer a shelter, a protected place for their clients
to stay in emergency situations. Such shelters represented a primary struc-
ture of crisis centres in Western Europe and the USA when they were first
established four decades ago. In Russia, the lack of shelters has led to the
characterization of crisis centres as a 'shelter without a shelter' : 8 t heir knowl-
edge, experience and information contributes to a discursive space in which
victims can seek advice and make choices pertaining to their insecurity. Crisis
centres have little help to provide, however, in terms of physical and material