Our History
Our History
In 1990 an East German women‘s initiative founded the association „For the Protection of Physically and Mentally Threatened Women and Their Children“. Patriarchal violence was not only a problem in West Germany, it also existed in East Germany where women had to face it on a daily basis and where violence against women was put under a strict taboo, as it contradicted the socialist ideals. As a result, such offences remained behind closed doors and were normally dealt with in private. There were no women’s shelters for women and their children who were affected by domestic violence.
The aim of the newly founded association was to create safe places for women in women’s shelters, lift the taboo on violence against women and raise public awareness instead. In 1992, today’s women’s shelter Cocon began its work as the 4th autonomous women’s shelter in Berlin. As an autonomous women’s shelter located in the former Eastern part of Berlin, we feel both connected to the young women’s shelter movement in the new federal states as well as with the autonomous women’s shelter movement in the old federal states. For that reason our association is committed to the work carried out by the Central Information Point for Autonomous Women’s Refuges (Zentrale Informationsstelle der autonomen Frauenhäuser – ZIF) which we support with our input.
In 2015, we developed a new concept based on a study carried out by the Federal State of Berlin, which identified a gap in care for women who are under a particular psychological stress. Since then, affected women and children have access to counselling offered by our psychologists and we have also introduced a night duty where our colleagues are available to listen to concerns women might have and intervene in a crisis.
The Cocon women’s shelter has also been welcoming trans* women since 2013. In regular training sessions, we are working on creating an environment that is as free of discrimination as possible and to reflect on our own insecurities. We see these training sessions as a continuous learning process.