Kvinnojourer som demokratiska aktörer

Ett skyddsnät och en röst för utsatta kvinnor i det civila samhället

Abstract

Women’s shelters in Sweden are characterized by both providing support and protection for women exposed to violence, and also addressing men’s violence against women politically. They have thus played a significant role in Swedish democracy. However, the democratic role of the Women’s Shelter Movement has evolved, and is now facing challenges. The development of state policy on intimate partner violence and women’s shelters is here explored through a reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022) of government policy documents from 1980 to 2024. The results show a shift from shelters having a decisive role in combating men’s violence against women to a new situation today, when shelters are provided as a service within a welfare market. This development has improved, for example, the quality of shelters, but it has also contributed to a depoliticization of parts of the movement.