Losing a school place is one of the most damaging things that happens to a child in this situation, and it is one of the most avoidable. A child who has lost their home, their room, their father's presence…
Everything about getting help is harder in a language you are not comfortable in, and the difficulty is systematically underestimated by people who have never had to do it. You can describe an ordinary day in a second language…
There is a consistent, slightly uncomfortable finding in this work: a woman who arrives alone is treated differently from a woman who arrives with somebody. The complaint is taken more seriously. The questions are less dismissive. The file moves…
A great many women dial the number, listen to it ring, and put the phone down. Sometimes for months. The reasons are consistent: not knowing what to say, not being sure it is bad enough, being afraid of what…
He has photographs or a video, and he is using them. Sometimes to stop you leaving. Sometimes after you have left. Sometimes they have already been sent to one person, as a demonstration of what could happen next. Two…
A great deal of what is written about domestic abuse assumes a marriage, and women who are not married frequently conclude that none of it applies to them, that nobody will take it seriously, and that there is nothing…
The most useful feature of a protection order is not what it forbids. It is that breaching it is itself an offence, which means the police can act on the breach without having to prove the original abuse all…
A woman reports an assault. He is arrested. By evening he is home, and often angrier than before. Most women read this as proof that the complaint failed and that the police did nothing. Usually that is not what…
Almost everything frightening about a first court appearance is the not knowing. This is a plain description of the shape of a day, so that nothing on it is a surprise. Procedure varies between courts and between states, and…
Almost nothing is written for this, and it is one of the commonest situations there is. A woman leaves, and then the money runs out, or the room ends, or a child cannot lose another school term, and she…
