LVIV, Ukraine — Olga Kareva came to the charity foundation Walnut House in January 2015 when she had nowhere else to go. She had just been released from prison (she reluctantly talks about that time of her life), and before that, she had fallen victim to property fraud and lost her apartment.
An accountant by trade, Kareva realized that, with a criminal record, it would be difficult for her to continue in her profession. She had no job and no home and had health issues after a heart attack.
She recalled a television program she watched years ago about an organization that provided shelter for women who risked becoming homeless. It also ran a bakery where those women could work.
She found contacts for Walnut House. Fortunately, there was a vacant place at the shelter. Soon, she began working as a baker.
Today, 50-year-old Kareva works as an accountant at the foundation. When the position became available the director offered it to her.
At the same time, she is helping women who suffer from domestic violence. This is her calling, she says.
Domestic violence is one of the reasons why women end up on the streets and having neither an escape nor means to pay rent is one of the reasons women don’t leave their abusive partners.
Currently, Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine with a population of 754,500 people, has no shelter for victims of domestic violence.
The Walnut House’s shelter that once welcomed Kareva had to shut down in 2016 because the landlord sold the premises. The foundation was given another building by the city authorities, for a discounted rent but in poor condition, which it agreed to fix at its own expense.
Walnut House wanted to change the floor plan for the needs of 15 women with children who could be staying there. The total cost of reconstruction and renovation was estimated at Hr 4.2 million (approximately $150,000).
Three-and-a-half years later, the works have not been completed yet. The nearly Hr 1.4 million that Walnut House received from sponsors has already been spent to start the repairs, and the city officials have not allocated the promised funds.
Ihor Kobryn, head of the social protection department at the Lviv City Council, said the city budget has Hr 2 million planned for this shelter. However, the money may only be spent on renovation and not reconstruction. “Simply speaking, until they finish the walls, we can’t allocate money,” he said.
In these circumstances, it is unknown when the shelter will reopen.
“We know that, as soon as we have money, the work will finish quickly. There’s no shortage of building materials or labor,” Kareva said.
In the six years that the Walnut House shelter existed, it accommodated 84 women. While temporary residents could live there for free for up to 14 months, they had to pay for utilities. And the foundation gave them a source of income by employing them at its bakery or catering service. Part of the profits went toward running the shelter. Women also received psychological counseling and legal support.
“The idea was to encourage women to move on and not become fixated on their problems. And earning money gave a person a sense of independence, freedom and dignity,” Kareva said. “At the bakery, women could learn new skills.”
The coronavirus pandemic hurt Walnut House, which has always relied on its social enterprise more than donors. The catering has stopped for an indefinite time until mass events and conferences are allowed again, and the bakery’s profits have dropped.
“We had many hopes for this year. Our organization is celebrating its 10th anniversary. But the situation with the pandemic changed the course,” Kareva said.
Another non-governmental organization called Women’s Perspectives has also been trying to open a shelter for victims of domestic violence. Since 2010, it has petitioned the Lviv City Council to allocate a vacant building on the condition that the organization would renovate it at its own expense. Finally, in February, city authorities approved the petition. Nothing has happened since then.
Kobryn, head of the social protection department at Lviv City Council, says that Women’s Perspectives will have to apply to the council again because legislation on the lease of communal property has changed, and so has the procedure.
Marta Chumalo, deputy director at Women’s Perspectives, said they will.
“We have to apply for a tender and propose a high price for rent,” she said, adding that they are put in unequal competition. The law gives a preference for discounted rent to establishments in arts and culture, education and rehabilitation of the disabled and veterans.
Meanwhile, Women’s Perspectives continues to rent an apartment to use it as a shelter that can accommodate only four women with children.
Kobryn said that his department is also waiting for the city council’s green light to turn a building that was used as housing for orphans into a shelter for victims of domestic violence. This year, Lviv opened a crisis room, a short-term refuge for the most urgent and high-risk cases of domestic violence where victims can stay for up to 10 days.
During the quarantine, the city council convened only a few times to review and vote for the most urgent issues that dealt with the pandemic response. Other issues have been put on hold, he said.
With so many resources going into helping victims of domestic violence — helplines, shelters, counseling — the focus is slowly shifting to the other side of the long-standing problem: abusers.
At the end of 2019, the Lviv Oblast administration became the first in Ukraine to purchase behavioral correction therapy for perpetrators from an external contractor.
Lviv-based public organization Osonnya provides such therapy for violent men and women who either are ordered to undergo it by a court or seek help voluntarily. To date, the organization has had 25 clients, including five women.
Psychologist Karina Ambartsumova says the program is based on cognitive behavioral therapy and comprises 50 hours of individual and group sessions. Participants work on their aggression, anger management and self-esteem. They learn about conflict resolution and personal boundaries. Often old traumas and memories re-emerge during the sessions and need to be addressed.
“All abusers, unless they have some mental illness, were victims themselves,” Ambartsumova said, adding that one of the negative consequences of domestic violence is that it is passed down in families. If a child observes a certain behavior at home, they are likely to copy it as an adult.
She believes all abusers have to undergo therapy.
Osonnya has won a competition to train psychologists across the Lviv region so that abusers have an opportunity to receive therapy in their communities.
This story was created with support from the Renewable Freedom Foundation. Read the previous coverage in the series Hidden refuge for domestic abuse victims opens in Kyiv and Under quarantine, Ukrainian victims of domestic violence struggle to access help
