Cuts in U.K. Raise Risks for Women LONDON - "In many ways, the women's sector is a model of the Big Society we wish to build." Thus spoke Theresa May, the British home secretary and one of only five women in the 23-strong cabinet, praising the work of domestic violence charities at the Women's Aid annual conference back in July 2010. "Where the voluntary sector does such excellent work, like in the provision of refuges and rape crisis centers," she said, "the government ensures the funding it provides is on a stable, long-term basis, ending the culture of charities having to survive hand-to-mouth, facing the threat of imminent closure." Two years and two austerity budgets later, 40 percent of groups working with victims of domestic and sexual violence have been forced to reduce staff and 28 percent have had to cut back services amid funding cuts from the local authorities of sometimes 100 percent, according to a survey of 37 organizations by the University of Worcester. Even Refuge , the oldest and most prominent of Britain's shelter organizations, which opened the world's first safe house in 1971 and supports 1,600 women and children on a given day, has warned that funding cuts across half of its services may force it to close down in the absence of substantial private donations. For many in the sector, the Big Society - the Conservative Party's flagship Big Idea to rebuild social cohesion by getting more people involved in community work - has become synonymous with a cash-strapped government looking for an excuse to save money. "In my entire career I've never been more concerned about our survival," said Sandra Horley, who has been chief executive of Refuge for the best part of three decades. This is Britain in 2012: Do we want to live in a world where women and children are beaten in their own home and funding for services to protect them is being withdrawn? At a time when billions of pounds in public services are being cut and about 730,000 public-sector jobs are being eliminated across Britain, women are bearing the burden of austerity on several levels: They account for two-thirds of public-sector employees and, as primary child-care-givers and retirees who live longer than their male counterparts, are twice as reliant on benefits as men, according to the Women's Budget Group, an independent organization that has been analyzing the gender implications of British budgets since the 1990s. But as austerity is slowly working its way through the less-visible layers of British society, women are also hurting where they are the most vulnerable. Ms. Horley put it starkly: "Women could find themselves in a dilemma: stay at home and risk being killed, or flee with their children to sleep on the streets." On an average day last year, 320 women were turned away from shelters because there were no beds for them, about 9 percent of those seeking refuge, according to Women's Aid, a charity supporting a network of about 500 domestic and sexual violence services. At Eaves , a domestic violence charity based in London, this number is no abstract statistic. "This happens on a daily basis," said Jennifer Garcia Bree, a social worker at Eaves's Scarlet Center in the south of the capital. These women come to us, and we try our best, but there just aren't enough resources. We have to tell them go on a night bus or to the emergency room where you can stay warm. It used to take one to two days to find someone a bed, Ms. Garcia Bree said. Now it can take one or two weeks. Sometimes that's too long. Women who decide to leave an abusive home are usually at a very high risk, she said. The government disputes that it is putting women in danger. Ms. May's minister of equality, Lynne Featherstone, declined to be interviewed. But a Home Office spokeswoman said the government had earmarked nearly £40 million, or $63 million, until 2015 for specialist local domestic and sexual violence support services. "This government is serious about keeping women and girls safe," the spokeswoman said. We have made it clear that services supporting victims of domestic violence shouldn't be an easy target for local authority budget cuts and we will continue to take concerted action across a range of policy areas to strengthen protection for victims.