42 June 2015 www.womanthismonth.com PEOPLE | interview Imagine you have been raped or beaten, physically or sexually assaulted. Not a comfortable thought! Now imagine you are at the hospital. Someone wants to take your blood, someone else wants to perform an intimate examination. It may be a case of domestic violence and you’ve, at last, found the courage to seek help, so there’s a police officer wanting to take your statement. And all you want is to be left alone! You’re worried about your kids, yourself, where will you spend the night? What’s going to happen tomorrow? You’re in pain and frightened and you need a friend, someone who’s 100 per cent on your side and someone who will be by your side to help you get through. That’s where Women’s Crisis Care International (WCCI) comes in. Set up in January by Mary-Justine Todd, herself a certified rape counsellor in the USA who has managed similar programmes in New York City and Sub-Saharan A new service has been launched to help women at their most vulnerable. Liz O’Reilly spoke to Mary-Justine Todd of Women’s Crisis Care International to find out more. A Friend in Need Africa, the service aims to get to women at the point of crisis and offer help and support. “When a woman is the victim of domestic or sexual violence, it is not uncommon that she will never go for long-term help,” says MaryJustine. “There is a window of opportunity we have to reach these women, when they are at the hospitals, so that’s where the crisis counsellors go.” Mary-Justine started working on the project when she came to Bahrain to join her husband two years ago and found there were many Mary-Justine Todd, Women’s Crisis Care International
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