Casa Marioarei Shelter faces closing

After six years of offering refuge to abused women, the Shelter Casa Marioarei (Mary's Home) is running the risk of being closed. The Shelter's director Victoria Cernat has told Info-Prim Neo that, with the accommodation services being suspended for half a year now, the Shelter will be compelled to stop volunteer-based consultancy services and cease operations altogether unless it manages to find a solution to its financial problems. The Shelter Casa Marioarei was opened in 2004 by an NGO of the same name to offer free temporary housing, social, legal, medical and psychological assistance to the women who affected by domestic violence as well as to their children. Since April the Shelter has been unable to provide accommodation because the grant project on which the service relied was completed and no other donors were found. “At times its really unbearable. It's not only me who is at risk, but also my two children. In the past, I always knew I can find refuge at Mary's Home, that I wouldn't be doomed. On the contrary, I would be helped and understood. But now the Shelter is closed. I don't know anymore which doors to knock at and what to do in the middle of the night”, said one woman visiting the Shelter. Moldova has committed itself by signing a number of international conventions to combating domestic violence. “On a national level, there are laws and strategies, which nevertheless often do not work”, said the Shelter's administration, disappointed that the government doesn't support civil society organizations working in this area. Some 10,000 women and children have benefited from the Shelter's services since its foundation in 2004. Annually, the Shelter provides assistance to around 2,000 beneficiaries.