Third anniversary of the Domestic Abuse Act

 

Farah Nazeer, chief executive at Women’s Aid, comments:  

“The Domestic Abuse Act came into force three years ago – a significant piece of legislation that was hard-won by tireless campaigning by survivors, activists, Women’s Aid and our sister organisations tackling violence against women and girls. 

“Despite the critical and unarguable importance of the Act, it contains some significant gaps, for example when it comes to ensuring vital protection for migrant survivors. We know that countless migrant women continue to suffer abuse in silence, for fear of their immigration status being disclosed to the Home Office by police and remain shut out from accessing safety and support.  

 

 

“Similarly, the implementation of key reforms in the Act has been mixed. For example, the sector continues to face a funding crisis that results in a postcode lottery of support – with women and children being turned away daily at the point of need. Despite a legal duty on councils to fund domestic abuse in safe accommodation, our research shows that around a quarter of life-saving refuge services – and less than half of those provided ‘by and for’ Black and minoritised women – in England were not commissioned by their local authority in 2022-23.  

“Survivors escaping domestic abuse continue to report serious safety concerns when they can’t access specialist support – women interviewed by the Office for National Statistics in temporary forms of accommodation were denied access to basic rights, felt isolated and depressed and were frightened for the safety of themselves and their children. The severe challenges with local authority budgets – with rising numbers of councils issuing Section 114 notices – are a further huge threat to the future of specialist domestic abuse support services.   

“While there is opportunity to improve on these in the Victims and Prisoners Bill, there is also significant resistance on the key measures, which could lead to this being another missed opportunity. This is not acceptable – survivors, and the frontline services needed to support them, tell us time and time again what they need, and we are not seeing urgent enough action. That is why at the next general election, we are calling on all parties to make violence against women a national priority. It is imperative that £427m is made available to specialist domestic abuse services supporting women and children, annually. We are also continuing to call for a separate, ring-fenced pot for ‘by and for’ services, to make sure their needs are met.”