Åldersgräns på Skyddade Boenden för Kvinnor

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to examine the opinions and the reflections workers at women’s shelters have regarding the limited access teenage boys experience to these shelters. Furthermore, what the workers think regarding the presence of teenage boys at the shelter. In order to achieve a deeper understanding of the reasoning workers have, the study applied a children's rights perspective and Hirdmans concept of genussystem and genuskontrakt. For this study a qualitative method has been applied using semi-structured interviews, in total six interviews were conducted. Workers from five different women’s shelters in Skåne, Sweden participated in this study. The results of this study implied that an age-limit for boys at these shelters is not compatible with a children's rights perspective. The boys’ rights as children were in some cases overlooked in favour of the abused women. The study showed that both abused women and some of the workers saw the teenage boys as young men. The boys’ were attributed personality traits based on societal stereotypical conceptions of their gender, which included a dominant and controlling behaviour and the potential risk of violence. However, neither of the workers had ever experienced any violent incidents at the shelters and none of the workers thought that the presence of teenage boys affected, or would affect, the work itself. At the same time, several workers pointed out that women might feel uncomfortable and unsafe with the presence of teenage boys, if living in a collective residence. This due to their experience of violent men but also, for some women, because of their religion prohibiting them from taking of their hijab in the presence of, what they consider, young men. It should be pointed out that the workers had little and in one case no experience of working with teenage boys at the shelter. In conclusion only one shelter practised an age-limit for boys. However, the results implied that workers un-reflected, gender-based norms and conceptions might risk a reproduction of the image of men as controlling, dominant and abusive and women as passive and victimised.