Country Profile Austria

General Country Information

Summary

There is one national women’s helpline in Austria that operates 24/7, is free of charge and offers multilingual support. There are 32 shelters in the country offering 505 beds in total (including 369 in shelters and 136 in temporary flats). The Network of Austrian Counselling Centres for Women and Girls has 65 counselling centres in all nine Austrian federal states as of 2025. There are at least 17 additional independent women’s counselling centres in Austria. Currently, a new National Action Plan (NAP) is being developed, including primary prevention actions, and there is a specific budget allocated to such activities. There is no comprehensive and centralised data collection mechanism on these activities. According to the financial agreement between the State and the NGOs, the women’s specialist services are required to collect data. All the statistics are published on the website of the National Coordination Office for Violence Against Women.

Women’s Specialist Services

There is one state-wide women’s helpline in Austria called Women’s Helpline Against Violence (Frauenhelpline gegen Gewalt, +43 800222555). It is free of charge and available 24/7, offering support in German, English, Arabic, Romanian, Spanish and Turkish. Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian was available until 2024. The helpline complies with the standards of the Istanbul Convention. The helpline is run by the Association of Autonomous Austrian Women’s Shelters (AÖF-Verein Autonome Österreichische Frauenhäuser), and is funded by the state, as well as by private donations. The helpline provides support for all types of gender-based violence against women, including physical violence, psychological violence, sexualised violence, sexual harassment, cyber violence, stalking, and economic violence. In 2024, it received 5,425 calls/contacts from 4,805 callers. The most common forms of violence reported by callers were domestic violence, sexualised violence and psychological violence. There are other regional helplines supporting survivors of violence against women in the country, such as the 24-hour Women’s Helpline of the City of Vienna (Frauennotruf der Stadt Wien, +43 1 71719), the gender-neutral Hotline of the victim protection centres (Gewaltschutzzentren, tel.: +43 800700217) and a gender-neutral Victim’s helpline for victims of all crimes (Opfernotruf +43 800112112).

There are 32 women-only shelters in Austria with 505 beds, including 369 in shelters and the remaining 136 in temporary flats, according to data from 2023. Sixteen of these shelters are part of the AÖF Network. Most women-only shelters offer 24/7 access. Based on the federal state, women who have an income can be expected to pay a small amount for their stay in a shelter, whereas women with lower financial income are not expected to pay. The length of the stay in the shelters depends on individual circumstances and ranges between three and six months. Based on 2023 data of the women’s shelters in the AÖF Network, most women stay in the shelters for no longer than 90 days (61%). The in-house services most frequently provided by the women-only shelters in the country are casework and psychological support/counselling.

In terms of accessibility, all shelters can accommodate older women, most can accommodate women with uncertain residence permits, undocumented women and refugee women. Some shelters can be accessed by and are accessible to women with physical, cognitive and sensory disabilities. There are other shelters in the country specialised in supporting specific groups, such as the women’s counselling centre “Orient Express” in Vienna, which runs a shelter/emergency apartment to accommodate girls and women between the ages of 16 to 24 who have been affected by forced marriage, and a shelter for women survivors of trafficking run by the NGO LEFÖ. These shelters do not offer 24/7 services. In 2023, a special women’s shelter for young women aged 16 to 25 was opened in Vienna, offering 28 bed spaces.

The funding of women’s shelters is a responsibility of the respective federal state and the local government. Therefore, the funding differs in each federal state. Additionally, shelters receive donations. Women’s NGOs with a gender-specific and feminist approach run 31 of the women-only shelters. The women’s shelter in Salzburg was closed in 2021, and a new concept has been implemented by the associations VIELE and Jugend am Werk. Women-only shelters are available in all regions of Austria; however, their presence in more remote areas varies according to the regional government. According to data from the 16 shelters of the AÖF Network, in 2023, approximately 200 women were unable to find support due to a lack of space in the shelters, which corresponds to 58% of the rejections. Of these, 7% of the referrals were declined due to homelessness, and another 7% because of the place of residency being in another federal state. The most common forms of violence reported by survivors to the women-only shelters in 2024 were domestic, physical and sexualised violence.

There are no other shelters in Austria, besides the women-only shelters, that can provide support to survivors of violence against women.

Due to the lack of public data on women’s centres, there are no consolidated statistics on their numbers.  According to the Federal Ministry for Women, Science and Research, there are currently 164 counselling centres for women and girls throughout Austria, but some centres are counted twice if they offer different services. The Network of Austrian Counselling Centres for Women and Girls (Netzwerk Österreichischer Frauen- und Mädchenberatungsstellen) had 65 counselling centres in all nine federal states in 2025. There are an additional 17 women’s counselling centres in Austria that operate independently of the network. These centres offer psychological assistance, legal advice, financial and social welfare support, employment, residential support services, housing advice and referrals to other services. The counselling is confidential, free of charge and takes place at the centres, by phone or online. Some of the centres of the Network of Austrian Counselling Centres for Women and Girls accompany clients to courts, police and social services. Some women’s centres in Austria can also offer residential support. Additionally, they also provide specialised support for survivors of sexualised violence, offering psychological care, advocacy services, legal advice, community awareness and education for prevention. 

Most women’s centres can be accessed by women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, refugee women and older women. Some centres can be accessed by and are accessible to women with cognitive, physical and sensory disabilities, as well as transgender women and unaccompanied girls under the age of 18. Many centres also offer specialised support to survivors of specific forms of violence. For instance, at least four centres are specialised in supporting survivors (at risk) of female genital mutilation: the African Women Organisation with the project “Bright Future” in Vienna, FEM SÜD-Frauengesundheitszentrum at Kaiser Franz Spital in Vienna, Orient Express in Vienna and DIVAN in Graz. The new Austria-wide FGM/C Coordination office offers advice, information and support on all issues related to female genital mutilation. Some members of the Network of Austrian Counselling Centres for Women and Girls are specialised in supporting survivors of forced marriage (e.g., Orient Express and LEFÖ in Vienna). The counselling centre DIVAN offers support to survivors of honour-based violence, and LEFÖ has an intervention centre for survivors of trafficking, offering psychological and legal assistance to women and children. The centre Ninlil specialises in supporting women with cognitive and physical disabilities. Some centres provide counselling for migrant women. According to the law, since 2016, all counselling services in Austria that are recognised women’s service centres must be barrier-free. This requirement must also be continuously supported with adequate financial resources. The majority of women’s centres are welcoming to transgender women and non-binary people, and at least five centres explicitly express this inclusion in the name of the centre.

The majority of women’s centres are run by women’s NGOs. Women’s centres are funded by the state and local governments, donations, international funding and religious institutions. Women’s centres often rely on multiple funding sources and must apply every year, making it difficult to ensure long-term financial stability. Funding is often project-based and bureaucratic and does not consider inflation. In terms of geographical coverage, women’s centres are located in all regions of Austria.

There are currently nine counselling centres for survivors of sexualised violence available in all regions of Austria, which belong to the association BAFÖ (Federation of Autonomous Women’s Counselling Centres Against Sexual Violence Austria). These counselling centres also engage in prevention, public awareness-raising campaigns, and advocate for socio-political change against sexism/sexualised violence. Furthermore, there are three Violence Intervention Clinics (Gewaltambulanzen) located in Graz, Vienna and Innsbruck; however, they are not specialised in the care of survivors of sexualised violence. Women’s centres also provide support to survivors of sexualised violence and refer them to specialised services and medical professionals. Hospitals have specialist victim protection groups (Opferschutzgruppen), which require adequate funding and resources to ensure comprehensive care and effective support. There are also specialised helplines in the country (e.g., Frauen gegen Vergewaltigung and Frauenberatung Notruf bei sexueller Gewalt). Services for survivors of sexualised violence provide needs assessment, specialist psychological care, advocacy services, community awareness and education for prevention, as well as legal advice. They are funded by the state/local government and donations from individuals and small businesses, and support both women and young women and children under the age of 18.

Public authorities partially support primary prevention activities. However, there is no comprehensive data collection mechanism on these activities. In Austria, a new National Action Plan is being developed at the time of writing, and it will include some aspects related to primary prevention, although details on its scope are not available yet. There is no official definition of primary prevention in the country, and there are small regional funding programmes for primary prevention offered and managed by different ministries and projects. However, there is no unified or comprehensive overview of these budget lines. In the country, there are several primary prevention activities offered (e.g., empowerment activities for girls and women, school-based primary prevention programmes, training for primary prevention practitioners, awareness-raising campaigns and primary prevention activities targeted at boys and men). One example is the Austria-wide project “StoP – Neighbourhoods without partner violence”, which is managed by the Association of Austrian Autonomous Women’s Shelters and funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs, and is externally evaluated. Moreover, women’s and girls’ counselling centres often integrate primary prevention activities into their work, offering workshops and educational programmes in schools and community spaces. Some women’s organisations conduct their own evaluations of these prevention efforts, focusing on issues such as gender-based violence, sexual harassment, and digital violence. There is no comprehensive evaluation of the impact of primary prevention activities at the national level. Some individual projects and initiatives may include internal or external evaluations, but these are not consistently funded or coordinated by public authorities at the national, regional, or local levels. Currently, there is a comprehensive Austria-wide study being prepared of the impact of the StoP projects in Austria, which should be released in 2026.