Why Supporting A Shelter For Women Is Now “Kind Of Radioactive”

Via NPR: There’s one voice Lisseth can’t get out of her head — the pleas of a 22-year-old woman. In June 2025, the woman had left a physically abusive partner to come to a shelter that Lisseth helped found in Honduras. By that time the shelter was facing a dire budget shortfall because of foreign aid cuts by the U.S. There simply wasn’t enough money to provide sanctuary — or even food — to all the women who needed it. “She would say ‘put me to sleep sitting up or give me food once a day,’ ” Lisseth recalls. ” ‘I can’t go back.’

For the past 30 years, Lisseth has fought to improve the lives of women in her country who experienced violence simply because they were women. She teamed up with others in her community and opened some of the first shelters in Honduras for those fleeing abuse. She pushed for policy changes. But this past year, as international assistance was slashed, she’s seen the disintegration of much of what she’s built. The 22-year-old’s voice echoing in her head — for her, it’s the human cost of losing her funding.

“This issue is falling off the agenda. It’s like women’s needs are disappearing,” says Diana Flórez, a researcher who wrote a report on gender-based violence in Latin America for the Women’s Refugee Commission. “At the beginning I thought: ‘Okay, the U.S. is going to go and then other actors are going to step in.’ That hasn’t happened.”