Gender-based violence was a part of the everyday reality of many of the women from Rural Women’s Social Education Centre (RUWSEC), Chengalpattu, in Tamil Nadu, South India. While we encountered many forms of gender-based violence, including sexual assault and violence on young women who transgressed accepted norms of sexual conduct, spousal violence was by far the most predominant form of violence that most women experienced. From its early days, RUWSEC as an organisation provided legal, psycho-social and economic support not only to women in the villages it worked in, but also to RUWSEC’s workers and managers who experienced spousal violence.
