On 23rd July 2024 the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs’ Council published the first National Policing Statement 2024 about Violence Against Women and Girls.
The very first sentence in this significant report describes violence against women and girls (VAWG) – including domestic abuse – as having reached ‘epidemic levels’ in the UK. It refers to the data that informed the Statement as ‘staggering’. It goes on to say: “At least 1 in every 12 women will be victims of VAWG per year (2 million victims) and we expect the exact number to be higher”. One in twelve. It is time we heard their voices and challenged that reality. Here is one of those voices.
Nina’s Story
“I have been a military wife for a number of years, during that time I have been subjected to emotional and physical domestic abuse. I tried to leave the relationship for almost 2 years – it was so unbelievably hard to do this because as a military wife I felt trapped. I gave up my independence to support my partner’s career and sadly – as the wife – you have no specific domestic abuse support. For the longest time I hadn’t realised that I was being abused. I accepted that it was normal to be treated the way I was being treated – the reality is that you don’t really want to believe that you are a victim of domestic abuse. I was embarrassed, I was away from my family, I was a new parent and I didn’t want to believe that I was being abused by the person that I loved.
The reality of a military wife’s life is that the serving solider holds most of the power: it’s heavily weighted in their favour – financially, housing and how they are treated. As the wife you feel you have nowhere to turn and nobody can help you. You stay, you stay and hope things will improve, that the abuse will stop. But it doesn’t, it inevitably gets worse.
I am lucky that I had a Women’s Aid case worker to help me because without her I wouldn’t have survived mentally or emotionally. She helped at every step of my criminal case against my ex-partner, helped to navigate what was happening and what would happen legally, financially, and with housing the kids. She was a fantastic support. She was in my corner, helping me and caring about me. She was a person that I could talk to when I didn’t know where to turn, somebody that could help me unpick everything and somebody to help me see the light at the end of the tunnel.”