Blog
Ending Domestic Abuse: Are We Getting Anywhere?
Over the course of the last two years, the Speaking Out: Recalling Women’s Aid in Scotland project collected oral history interviews with 62 people involved in the 40-plus years of Women’s Aid in Scotland. Service users, workers, volunteers, academics, and politicians...
Household Payments and Universal Credit: System Error
These past few weeks we’ve seen outcry about the widespread misery caused by long delays in payment of Universal Credit, and rightly so. Universal Credit is a new social security system that brings all household benefits into one monthly payment that is put into one...
“Hello, you’re through to the helpline”
I don’t know why I called tonight. My friend gave me the number and I laughed at her. That’s not for me, I thought. People phone helplines when they’re suicidal. But my husband is out with his friends tonight and I’ve had a glass of wine. Dutch courage. When I...
one thousand words
Photographs show us snapshots of lives and experiences but they can also mislead, misinform and show versions of a story that we wouldn’t always recognise. Most photos that try to portray domestic abuse do the latter. They tell us only young, white, slim,...
Nudes aren’t the problem; abuse is
Feminists and activists have long argued that violence against women is never the victim’s fault. We’ve done so against every other powerful influence within society arguing the polar opposite. The media especially can be quick to jump on this, coining...
A Race To The Top: adopting a needs-based approach to commissioning specialist services
Local Authorities in Scotland are not having an easy time of it. The cuts being handed down from Westminster are having a dire impact on not only local authorities and their staff, but also on services and the communities that they were set up...
#ChangeHerStory – a joint open letter to MPs from Women’s Aid across the UK
Dear Members of Parliament, All of us have the right to live free from violence and abuse. Yet violence against women taints all of our communities throughout the United Kingdom; it is rife inEngland, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Available data for 2015 shows...
More than a number
On any given day in 2015, 95 women and 11 children contacted Women’s Aid for the very first time. On any given day, 347 women and 331 children were living in a Women’s Aid refuge. On any given day 33 women and 30 children asked for refuge and for 9 women and 7...