How a leading charity is helping survivors co-designing an app to offer support to women victims of violence
Interview with Donna Covey CBE, chief executive of AVA
AVA (Against Violence & Abuse) is a leading charity committed to ending violence against women and girls through their policy, research and prevention work. We had a chat with the chief executive Donna Covey CBE, to discover more about the work AVA is doing to ensure that victims and survivors of domestic abuse are not left alone, especially in the light of the ongoing COVID pandemic, and discuss about UK government position in the safeguard of women rights.
Donna has been Chief Executive of AVA since December 2014. She started her career in the Trade Union movement, specialising in equality and diversity issues, and spent 10 years as a member of the TUC General Council. She has run a number of third sector organisations, including Asthma UK and the Refugee Council. She has written extensively on health, equality and human rights issues. In 2013 Donna was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to equality and human rights.
The impact of the pandemic on those facing domestic abuse was evident almost immediately during the national lock down in March. Now that the country is facing a second lock down, many organisations working with people facing domestic abuse are making renewed calls for long-term funding, and pushing for further amendments to the domestic abuse bill.
«I think a second wave of lock down is undoubtedly creating problems and raising the numbers of gender based violence and domestic abuse cases – commented Donna. For many women it is very hard to escape from a violent partner or abuser because he is at home, the whole time, furloughed or unemployed. Women need to have space and time to be able to escape, or make a phone call that could save their life, and under these circumstances they simply can’t do that because they can’t leave the house, and neither do their abusers. When you add this to the challenges that services are facing due to COVID and lockdown, for example the difficulty of moving from refuge, it’s obviously a real concern. Not only for the women that can not leave their abuser, but also for the ones that managed to leave them and they suddenly found themselves cut off their network and safety net ».
The unprecedented crisis has shown the need for safe, trauma-informed and remote access support in a way which we cannot and should not ignore. AVA, through the Breathing Space app, is helping survivors and victims of domestic abuse finding support online in a safe environment that takes deeply into consideration the long term effects and triggers generated in the aftermath of the violence.
«The idea – explain Donna – came from the women we work with and the Breathing Space has been entirely designed by survivors with the help of our experts. Survivors are those that know what it’s like to live through abuse. Survivors should be figure heading projects seeking to support those living with abuse, bringing experiential, grounded knowledge of what survivors themselves want and need. They can fill the gap, show what is missing in the aftercare for those dealing with trauma. Breathing Space in its current form provides both practical and emotional support. The app provides a simple tool that helps survivors navigate appropriate support, at the right time and gain access to information that acknowledges and reflects what they have gone through, as designed by those who have lived it».
Back in April the Home Secretary Priti Patel said that the Home Office was releasing an extra £2m for domestic abuse helplines and online support. But front line organisations throughout the UK criticized this funding injection as vastly insufficient. This decision came after a decade of austerity where the sector has suffered drastic funding cuts, including £7m slashed by councils for women’s refuges in England, Wales and Scotland between 2010 and 2018. In the latest Women’s Aid’s report data confirmed that more than 23,000 referrals to refuges were declined in 2018-19.
«Domestic abuse has been underfunded way before the arrival of COVID and consequent lock down – said Donna – and now even more. The Government has not done anything in particular, and the additional funding is a short term solution, and this is not what we need. The United Kingdom signed the Istanbul convention but is taking forever to rectify it. The domestic abuse bill is too narrow, and risks to fail many victims if housing, funding and support will remain unavailable. This is very indicative of the UK approach, the government wants to do something but it is lacking commitment. If you also add to the equation the impact of Brexit on the democratic process and the inability of the government to focus on domestic issues, you will have a full picture of the current situation».
Intersectionality is another aspect that has been left out from laws and bills, with the risk of endangering lives of thousands of women just because of their status, ethnicity or visa requirements .
«The Domestic Abuse bill does not look at intersectionality. Honour based killings and forced marriage are not considered a form of domestic abuse, so they are ignored. When it comes to migrant women the laws impact their safety even more. The direct impact of migration laws on women lives and safety and the migration system in the UK makes it difficult for women to seek and get help, because they are scared to be deported and sent back home. Therefore most women will not report the crime and rather decide to stay with their abusers. Historically in the UK there has not been a conversation around intersectionality ».
Maybe a reason behind this inability of writing laws that are representative of a whole society, made of different intersections is the lack of women in the parliament and in decision making positions?
«More women, better laws? Not necessarily, – commented Donna. On one hand it is true that we should have more women in parliament and in the cabinet; it is important in a democracy to have a representation of all the actors. Having said that the UK experienced a significant increase of women in parliament, but that did not bring the expected results. The current home secretary, Priti Patel, is a woman, and so was Theresa May and they both oversaw policies and practices from the Home Office that made migrant women’s lives very difficult. It is not just a matter of gender, but of the individuals. We need women at all levels, in large numbers. The women sitting in the parliament have not gone through the same experiences of the women that we are helping at AVA, so they can not represent them accordingly. Women in the parliament – concluded Donna – are not necessarily the representation of ordinary women out there».
