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The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) is a research and advocacy organization that seeks to integrate concern for gender equity and social justice into international health policy and practice. CHANGE staff can be reached by e-mail at change@genderhealth.org or at http://www.genderhealth.org.

In many countries advocates have responded by setting up crisis centers or other services to address the many needs of abused women and girls. Such centers generally offer medical, legal, and counseling services, often all in one location. Some services are funded and run by government, and others, by women's organizations or other nonprofit groups.

Services run by women's groups have pioneered the use of support groups and nondirective feminist counseling designed to empower women. Support groups can play an important role in reducing women's sense of isolation, allowing them to develop a common understanding of violence and to share coping strategies (408).

Developed countries often have relied on shelters to protect women in crisis. Shelters are costly to maintain, however, and require women to uproot themselves and their childrenjust when familiar surroundings and continuity in schools and friendships could be a great support. Communities are now experimenting with other low-cost ways to increase women's safety, such as providing safe home networks and sanctuary churches where women can seek safety and support. In industrial countries such as Sweden and the US, municipal governments and private companies have tried providing battered women with cellular phones, alarm devices, and even guard dogs to help protect them from abusive partners (360).

Elsewhere, governments have experimented with police stations staffed only by women—an innovation that began in Brazil and has now spread throughout Latin America and parts of Asia (267, 359). Although good in theory, such efforts to date have faced many problems, evaluations show (134, 205, 302, 305, 359, 432).

While the presence of a women's police station increases the number of abused women coming forward, frequently the women require services—such as legal advice and emotional counseling—that are not available at the stations. Moreover, the assumption that female officers will be more sympathetic to victims has not always proved true. Female officers assigned to all-women stations frequently have been ridiculed by their peers and have become demoralized. To be viable, this strategy must be accompanied by sensitivity training for officers, mechanisms to reward and legitimate the work, and provision of a wider array of services (205, 305, 359).