The WAVE Thematic Paper on the Importance of Women’s Specialist Support Services in Europe explores the necessity and added value provided by this type of services for women survivors of violence and their children. The paper also makes reference to several studies carried out in various European countries looking into the economic cost associated with violence against women in society. The paper underlines a series of prevention measures for violence against women and gives a brief historical overview of the development of women’s specialist support services (WSS) and the feminist principles according to which they operate. Last but not least, the paper underlines the importance of data collection in the field of WSS, in terms of user and service statistics.

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