Guided by our mission, every day we look at ways to heal and empower people who have experienced violence. We develop awareness programs, organize seminars, and talks with relevant authorities, and launch campaigns to sensitize the public about the negative mental and physical effects of violence.
For true empowerment, we believe in the power of education. Being an entity responsible for reducing the prevalence of violence in our society, we provide trainings and workshops to help survivors heal and thrive. From a public awareness viewpoint, we organize campaigns and facilitate knowledge exchange.
Over the years, we have hosted regional and international humanitarian experts and participated in several conferences with the aim of increasing awareness to protect human rights and combat forms of violence.
At the Abu Dhabi Center for Sheltering and Humanitarian Care – Ewaa, we understand violence is damaging and can have short- and/or long-term effects on a person’s wellbeing. By partnering with relevant bodies including government entities, law enforcement authorities, educational entities, and other relevant organizations we are able to create programs to increase our reach and visibility among various expatriate and local communities in the UAE.
We continue to stay committed to our current partners and to building future partnerships to change social beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors towards violence.
We do our best not only to care and empower people who carry the burden of violence but use our knowledge in the field to engage and build alliance among policymakers.
For instance, our experience for more than a decade with people – victims of human trafficking helped us develop recommendations that contributed to the amendment of the Federal Law No. (51) of 2006 on Combating Human Trafficking Crimes.
As of 2020, our humanitarian efforts for people who experience all kinds of violence have intensified with the aim to influence policies and programs for better prevention and better care.
Risk factors for violence can differ depending on the age and type of violence among others. For instance, direct or contributing factors in the case of partner violence differ from factors linked to youth violence.
Below are a few factors relating to the individual, family, and society.
Globally, violence and other terms such as abuse, neglect, and exploitation are often used interchangeably.
While these terms may be defined differently in context of the law, there are common elements, namely:
(a) The nature of the act,
(b) The relationship between the offender and the victim,
(c) The offender’s motives or intent, and,
(d) Consequences for the victim.
Any physical, aggressive behavior perpetrated on an individual by another individual within the family; or threatening them directly, such as beating, threatening harm, or withholding physical needs.
Any behavior that includes sexual abuse, whether behavioral, verbal, or physical, including, for example, the use of force or coercion, manipulation of the victim, forcing the victim to have sex, unwilling sexual experiences, involvement in prostitution preventing permissible sex with the victim as a control mechanism; or threatening the victim by publishing a picture or scandal using social networking sites or other different means of publication.
Any abusive language used to discredit, embarrass, or threaten the victim, such as using ugly and inappropriate names, telling victims that they are unwanted, agitation and screaming
Any behavior that takes advantage of the victims’ weakness to confuse them and make them feel personal insecurity, whether in real life or in virtual reality, such as manipulation, intimidation, control, criticism to undermine the victims’ self-confidence, public humiliation, death threats, and refusal to speak to them.
Any behavior that involves manipulating the victim’s economic materials, for example, not allowing the victim to obtain money, reducing it in one way or another, misdirecting family income, coercing the victim into an allowance, causing the victims to lose their jobs.
The apparent and continuous failure that appears evident to secure the basic needs – physical, psychological, health, education; taking precautions and measures to prevent harm in a way that threatens the safety of any family member, and their right to protection and care, including, failure to obtain identification papers, failure to follow up on official requirements, and refusal to advise and direct.
