Country Profile Iceland

General Country Information

Summary

Iceland has one national women’s helpline that is free of charge, operates 24/7, and provides multilingual support. There are two women-only shelters in Iceland, with a total of 28 beds. Iceland has seven women’s centres, as well as two rape crisis centres, which provide crisis and medical services for women survivors of sexualised violence. Provisions on primary prevention activities are included in official documents such as the Action Plan on the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence and harassment among children and young people 2021-2025, and there is a specific budget allocated to primary prevention activities. The state collects data on women’s specialist services, which is publicly available, but it does not collect data on primary prevention¹.

Women’s Specialist Services

There is one national women’s helpline in Iceland called The Women’s Shelter Helpline (Neyðarsími Kvennaathvarfsins, tel.: +354 5611205), which is run by The Women’s Shelter Association (Samtäk um Kvennaathvarf). The helpline is free of charge, available 24/7 and offers multilingual support in any language supported by the Language Line. Therefore, the helpline meets the minimum standards of the Istanbul Convention for the provision of a national women’s helpline. The Women’s Shelter Helpline provides support for survivors of domestic violence and intimate partner violence. Funding for the national helpline comes from the state as well as from donations. The most common forms of violence reported in 2024 were domestic violence, physical violence and psychological violence. There are no other regional helplines supporting survivors of violence against women in Iceland.

In Iceland, there are two women-only shelters, one in Reykjavik and one in Akureyri, providing a total of 28 beds. The number of beds generally meets the country’s needs, although in rare cases all places are occupied. As there are no legal regulations on the maximum number of residents, shelters are never considered “full,” and solutions are found if all beds are taken. There is however still a shortage of women-only shelters in rural areas, as well as a lack of specialised services for survivors of trafficking, sexual exploitation, or women with substance abuse issues. Both shelters offer 24/7 access. The Reykjavík shelter has a consultant on duty around the clock, while in Akureyri night-time access is ensured through an emergency phone line. Women are not expected to pay for their accommodation. There is no set time limit for the length of stay, as each case is assessed individually. On average, women stay around 30 days. The main in-house services provided by women-only shelters include counselling and psychological support, referrals and cooperation with other services, practical advice on housing, social benefits, healthcare, and employment. General counselling is the predominant type of support provided.

All women-only shelters can accommodate women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, refugee women, women with sensory disabilities and older women. Most shelters can be accessed by and are accessible to women with physical or cognitive disabilities, transgender women, women with older sons and women with children with disabilities. Some shelters are equipped to support homeless women and women with substance abuse issues. There are no specialised shelters supporting particular groups of survivors nor women survivors (at risk) of specific forms of violence in Iceland.
Women-only shelters in Iceland are primarily funded by the state and through donations. Both shelters are run by women’s NGOs with a gender-specific and feminist approach and are located in major cities. In 2024, the main reasons why women-only shelters had to decline referrals were that survivors were ineligible for support, or that shelters were not adequately equipped to meet the survivor’s specific needs. Additionally, women-only shelters do not provide accommodation to women with active substance abuse issues. The most commonly reported forms of violence by survivors in 2024 were domestic violence, physical violence, and psychological violence. In total, 162 women and 117 children were accommodated in women-only shelters in 2024.

There are no other shelters which can provide support to survivors of violence against women in Iceland. There is one shelter providing shelter to survivors of violence which operates as a homeless shelter for women and is also accessible to women with substance abuse issues. This shelter has 12 available beds and is run by the NGO Rótin. This shelter is women-only but it is not explicitly for survivors of violence, although homeless women are very likely to be survivors of violence.

There are seven women’s centres in Iceland, two of which are only for women survivors of violence and five for all survivors of violence, including women. All centres provide counselling and psychological support, legal advice, housing advice, as well as referrals and collaboration with other services. Two centres also operate as women-only shelters, in Reykjavik and Akureyri, and therefore provide both residential and non-residential support. Women’s centres also provide specialist support for survivors of sexualised violence, including specialist psychological care and community awareness and education for prevention.

All women’s centres are equipped to support women with uncertain residence permits and undocumented women, women with sensory disabilities, older women and transgender women. Most women’s centres can be accessed by and are accessible to refugee women, women with physical disabilities and women with cognitive disabilities. Some of them are equipped to support unaccompanied girls under the age of 18. In Iceland, all seven women’s centres are equipped to support survivors of trafficking, but only one of them is specialised in providing such services. Apart from that, there are no other centres specialised in supporting particular groups of survivors nor women survivors (at risk) of specific forms of violence.

Three women’s centres are run by women’s NGOs, and the four remaining ones are run in cooperation with NGOs, the state and municipalities. Funding for women’s centres stems mainly from the state and donations and they are located in major cities of Iceland. Roughly 2,000 women were supported by all women’s centres in 2024.

In Iceland, specialised services for survivors of sexualised violence are available and include rape crisis centres, crisis and medical services, and specialised helplines. Two rape crisis centres operate within national hospitals in the country’s two main cities, where survivors can access both crisis response and medical care. The rape crisis centre in the north of the country was already in operation in 2022 but has now become fully functional. The national helpline can also provide support for survivors of sexualised violence, although it is not specialised for survivors of such violence. Additionally, the police helpline (112) has been developed over the last years to be better equipped to support survivors of sexualised violence.

There are education and counselling centres for survivors of sexual abuse and violence including Stígamót in Reykjavik, Aflið in Akureyri, Sigurhæðir in Selfoss and Barnahús for young survivors. Stígamót further provides free counselling for survivors of rape, sexual molestation, sexual harassment, and sexual exploitation. The organisation also conducts workshops and trainings on various aspects of sexualised violence and survivor support, aimed at professionals, individuals, and government officials.

The services offer a wide range of support, including specialist forensic and medical care, needs assessments, specialist psychological care, specialist sexualised violence advocacy services, legal advice as well as community awareness and prevention initiatives. Services are funded by the state and are available across all regions of the country. While women and girls are the primary target group, survivors of all genders can access these services.

Public authorities in Iceland do not systematically collect data on primary prevention activities, although provisions on primary prevention are included in official documents such as the Action Plan on the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence and harassment among children and young people 2021–2025.² Iceland allocates a specific, non-fixed budget to primary prevention activities, where specific projects receive funding, often applied annually or every three years. Primary prevention activities in the country include feminist self-defence trainings, school-based prevention programmes, training for prevention practitioners, bystander intervention training, and awareness-raising campaigns or programmes. However, the impact of these activities is not evaluated by public authorities. Further activities include Sjúkást (Crazy Love), a public awareness and prevention campaign run by Stígamót, focusing on healthy relationships and information for young people.³ Public awareness campaigns are partially funded by national authorities and have increased in size from year to year. The Crazy Love campaign runs every year in cooperation with youth centres and schools.

1. Data on women’s specialist services is publicly available here: https://www.112.is/. ↩︎
2. Government of Iceland, Action Plan on the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence and harassment among children and young people 2021–2025, https://www.stjornarradid.is/verkefni/mannrettindi-og-jafnretti/jafnretti/forvarnir-medal-barna-og-ungmenna-gegn-kynferdislegu-og-kynbundnu-ofbeldi-og-areitni/. ↩︎
3. More info on the campaign available here: https://sjukast.is/. ↩︎