Hard
knock life
Violence against women
A guide for donors and funders
Do you know a woman whose life has And yet, in spite of significant
been affected by domestic violence or government progress over the past 30
sexual assault? Chances are that you years, little is being done to prevent
do. You might be shocked to learn that violence against women and not
almost one in every two women in the enough is being done to help the
UK has been forced to endure abuse victims; there are massive gaps in
ranging from verbal threats to physical services, and too many perpetrators
assault, rape, genital mutilation and escape justice.
forced marriage. Women who have
been trafficked or are involved Saving women’s lives
in prostitution are subjected to
For many years, charities have provided
particularly frequent and extreme
a listening ear and have been a source
violence.
of support for victims of violence against
women. They have campaigned for
The impact on women is devastating.
better services and legal protection for
Yet the cost of violence against
victims. They have developed new ways
women is not borne by women alone.
of tackling violence against women,
The financial burden of public services
and they have helped those women
and the lost economic output of these
the government has failed to support.
women run into billions of pounds.
Yet these charities are chronically
In fact, NPC has calculated that these
underfunded.
costs, and the emotional costs, of
violence against women exceed £40bn
Private funders can make a huge
per year—more than the government
difference. At the most extreme level,
spends on defence.
funding charities in this field will help
to save women’s lives. It will also help
many women to avoid years of misery, to
recover from the trauma of abuse and to
rebuild their lives.
He just kept beating
me. He used to lock
the doors and take
my keys and phone,
so I couldn’t get away.
Photograph supplied by istockphoto
People at work saw
when he had beaten
me up, but no one ever
asked me what was
going on.
April 2008
Justine Järvinen
Angela Kail
Iona Miller
By tackling violence against women,
donors will help to tackle many other
interlinking issues too—from child abuse
to homelessness, mental health problems
and drug or alcohol abuse.
To find out more about the most effective
charities to support in the field, read
NPC’s report Hard knock life.
Nowhere to turn
In 2002, Julia Pemberton decided to
leave her husband after 23 years of
his controlling behaviour. Alan calmly
issued an ultimatum: if she divorced
him, he would kill her, and then
kill himself.
Julia went to the police and told the
domestic violence coordinator about
the situation but no charges were
brought. Instead, Julia was told to
get a civil injunction stopping her
husband from approaching her or the
house. The injunction was served,
but the threats continued.
Fourteen months later, Alan arrived
at Julia’s home and killed his son, his
wife and then himself. The transcript
of the 999 call reveals a catalogue of
failures. Although Julia had a panic
alarm installed in the house, and had
been assured that a police car would
be sent immediately even if she
made a silent call to the police, the
operator repeatedly asked for Julia’s
address. Firearms officers did not
arrive until one hour after the call. It
was seven hours before they entered
the house and found the bodies.
Before her death Julia told a friend:
‘When my son’s bike was stolen, two
police officers turned up at my door.
When my husband threatened to kill
me, no one was there to help.’
1
 Hard questions
Analysts at NPC spent 18 months
researching and writing the report
Hard knock life. Here Justine Järvinen
(pictured), a senior research analyst,
explains why charities tackling
violence against women deserve
donors’ attention—and financial
support.
What did you come across in
your research that was new or
surprising?
The most shocking thing was the scale of
the problem. If you think that nearly half
of all women in the UK are affected by
violence, then you realise you’ll be seeing
many victims of violence every single day.
I know that covers a broad spectrum
of abuse, from verbal abuse to physical
harm, but the number is still staggering.
Is violence against women
really still a problem today in
the UK?
Yes, unfortunately, it is. A woman is
more likely to be sexually assaulted
than she is to get breast cancer. Unlike
breast cancer, sexual violence is
rarely discussed. Neither is domestic
violence. It’s true that we’ve got better
at highlighting these issues, for example
in soap opera storylines or newspapers,
and there has been progress on the
policy front. But, there is still a stigma
attached to these crimes. We need to
tackle this and to change attitudes in
order to change behaviour.
There’s still a significant minority of
people who think violence is justified in
some circumstances. For example, one
in three young men believes it could be
okay to hit a woman if she were ‘nagging’,
and one in five still thinks it is acceptable
for a man to force a woman to have
sex if they are married. It is not just the
general public that blames victims—this
hostility finds its way into the criminal
justice system, in the attitudes of police,
prosecutors and juries too.
2
Charities play a role in changing these
attitudes and preventing violence from
happening in the first place, as well as
helping those women who have already
experienced violence.
Surely it is the government’s
job to tackle this problem?
It is the government’s responsibility to
protect its citizens. It is also responsible
for providing services for victims, such
as healthcare through GPs, and support
through the police and social services.
Photograph supplied by Laura Kidd
It is also a big funder of charities that
provide services for victims, such as
refuge beds.
Charities play other important roles too.
They help government to improve its
services. Charities also provide services
themselves, including some specialist or
local services that they are well placed
to deliver. And charities hold government
to account, lobby for change and run
awareness campaigns to help change
attitudes.
Do you think the government
should do more?
Although there has been significant When I became
progress, more should be done.
Specifically, we think that the government pregnant, my mother-
should be providing more specialist
services. For example, there is no national
in-law continued to
rape helpline in England and Wales. abuse me and one
When we started our research we tried to
find out what support services would be
day she beat me into
available for a victim living in east London unconsciousness.
who had experienced rape many months
before. The victim had received some When I awoke, I
counselling through her GP, but months was bleeding and
after the attack, she needed more
support. Armed with some background miscarried for two
knowledge, a phone book and the
days. Her response
internet—and with clear heads, since we
were not traumatised—we searched for was [for me] to take
45 minutes but still could not find any
specialist counselling services. Imagine
painkillers and return to
being raped and being unable to find help work.
to recover from the trauma?
If the problem is so endemic,
can charities really make a
difference?
Yes, charities can and do bring about
change. They are at the frontline of
providing specialist and local support to
victims of violence. For example, charities

Photograph supplied by Julian Nieman/Refuge

run culturally specific support services for
black and minority ethnic (BME) women,
taking account of the additional pressures
these women face from their community
or because they are immigrants.

Above and beyond this, charities can

innovate. For example, charities piloted
the idea of advocates for victims of
domestic violence. The advocate helps
women to navigate different government
and charity services and acts as her
voice to make sure she gets all the help
she needs. This idea was taken up by
government and is now being replicated
across the country.
Surely issues like forced
marriage and female genital
mutilation (FGM) are cultural
issues and therefore not
the business of charities or
anyone else?
Many hundreds of victims of these
practices seek help every year. We’ve
talked to the people who help these
victims and they don’t think of them as
cultural issues, but instead as violations
of human rights. It is probably worth
clarifying that a forced marriage is not
the same as an arranged marriage.
Forced marriage is where one or both
parties don’t agree, yet this is something
happening throughout the UK. On a
similar note, FGM is most often done to
children, so it is a form if child abuse and
should not be tolerated.
How can donors help?
Private donors can do so much. They can
fund charities to help prevent the problem
happening, by working with vulnerable
girls who might grow up to become
victims, or by working to change the
attitudes of the general public towards
the issue of violence against women. By
supporting charities, donors can also
help provide specialist services for victims
and help to keep them safe, not least
through the justice system.
By tackling violence against women,
donors help to solve many problems
since it is often at the root of child abuse,
homelessness, mental ill-health and crime.
If you had to pick just one
priority for donors what would
it be?
All these issues desperately need funding.
If I had to choose, I’d advise donors to
support charities helping victims of rape
and sexual violence, as there are currently
very few places for them to go for help.
Aren’t men victims of violence
too?
Yes, they are more likely to be victims
of certain types of violence, such as
muggings, but this wasn’t the scope of
our report. The violence we focus on in
the report is more commonly experienced
by women. And women are more likely
to be victims of repeated violence, as it is
often carried out by someone they know.
If you could wave a magic
wand and change one thing in
this sector, what would it be?
Of course it would be to prevent violence
from happening in the first place. And,
as abuse is so often repeated, my wish
would be that the first time a woman
experiences abuse she is helped, so that
she doesn’t have to live in fear.
I never imagined he
would rape me. Twice.
And then tell me he’d
done nothing wrong,
that it was his right as
my husband.
Making change happen
We know what works. For lots of
women, we know who their abusers
are, we know where they live. We
also know what keeps women safe
from future abuse:
• appointing an advocate to
coordinate services for victims of
domestic violence means they
get the support they need to stay
safe and possibly also bring the
perpetrator to justice;
• providing an exit programme for
women in prostitution, to help
them escape the abuse they
regularly face and build a new
future; or
• providing specialist counselling
and practical support to trafficked
women, such as housing or
education, helps them stay safe
and avoid being re-trafficked.
These approaches have been
tried and tested by charities.
Funding charities to keep providing
these services, or to pioneer new
approaches, can help change lives.

3
 Tackling violence
against women
The problem needs to be tackled by
three main approaches: preventing
abuse, providing support services to
victims and ensuring perpetrators are
held to account if they have committed
a crime.
1. Preventing abuse
It may no longer be socially acceptable
to joke about wife beating, but, dig a
little deeper and you will find that very
old-fashioned ideas about violence
against women still abound. For
example, more than one in four people
thinks that a woman bears some
responsibility for being raped if she wears
revealing clothing.
As long as these hostile attitudes remain
entrenched in our culture, violence
against women will continue to be a
problem. Prevention is always better than
cure. And preventative work is certainly
needed to change people’s attitudes,
and ultimately their behaviour. However,
4
this is an area where there is very little
money invested.
Public education campaigns and work
in schools to tackle negative attitudes as
early as possible are not being carried out
consistently or over the long term. While
there is no firm evidence that campaigns
like these reduce the rate of violence, they
do let victims know that help is available
and they prompt more victims to seek
help as a result.
2. Providing the help that
women want
NPC’s research has found that women
want specialist women-only services
that deal with the aftermath of violence
and abuse. Whether they have been
affected by domestic violence, rape,
genital mutilation or trafficking, they
need services that are tailored to their
specific problems—and can help them to
overcome the trauma of their abuse over
the long term.
These services are essential and must
be able to expand to meet the demand
from victims—yet at the moment, there
are massive gaps in services across
the country. Fewer than one in four
local authorities has any sexual violence
services, so the majority of women in
the UK cannot even get access to a rape
crisis centre if they have been raped.
3. Protecting women through
the criminal justice system
To add insult to injury, very few
perpetrators of violence against women
are convicted for the crimes they
commit. The conviction rate for rape
is just 6%. And while law enforcement
and prosecution are largely the state’s
responsibility, charities can play a key
role in keeping more women safe by
convicting more perpetrators. To do this
they support women through the court
process, train the police and magistrates
and help agencies to share information
that may improve conviction rates.
Photograph supplied by istockphoto
Priorities for funding
Choose intervention focus

Prevention Provision of services Prosecution and justice

coordinating agencies
Domestic
campaigning and awareness raising to change

advocacy
violence
psychological support
Choose topic

Rape and
attitudes and behaviour

specialist counselling
sexual assault

helping women without the

Violence
against BME safety net of public funds
women culturally specific support

preventing adult
Prostitution support to leave prostitution
prostitution

Trafficking specialist housing and support

Hard knock life is structured around The west London-based charity

the major forms of violence against Standing Together Against Domestic The abuse that was
women: domestic violence, rape and Violence, is an effective charity operating
sexual assault, violence against black in this area. It helps the police, courts, started by my father
and minority ethnic women, violence
against women in prostitution and
health services and other agencies to
act together and share information.
was carried on by my
trafficked women. Here we highlight It coordinates a specialist domestic husband, and has
some charities that are making a violence court, trains the agencies
difference in these five areas: involved and holds them to account.
now come full circle
with my son treating
1. Tackling domestic violence The charity Co-ordinated Action
Against Domestic Abuse (CAADA) me in the same way.
When agencies do not talk to each other
or fail to share important information,
runs accredited training programmes for
advocates, to help victims of domestic
But at every point I
women are at risk of further violence. For
example, the police might follow best
violence to navigate the complex and have been told to keep
intimidating court system and to help
practice guidelines and arrest and charge
them access a wide range of services.
quiet, that I should not
an abuser instead of giving him a caution,
but the court might then release him on
bring dishonour to the
As well as providing refuge beds and
unconditional bail, leaving him free to psychological support for women who family. I want to know
continue to harass or assault the victim. have been victims of violence, the national
charity Refuge runs large-scale media
why men who abuse
campaigns. These raise awareness of aren’t told that they are
domestic violence, to challenge the myths
surrounding it, and to change some of the
bringing disrepute and
attitudes towards domestic violence that why women have to
are commonplace in society.
carry all the burdens.

5
 self-esteem, for others the intervention is
life saving, by reducing suicidal feelings,
depression and self-harm.

Rape crisis centres help hundreds of

women a year, for £600 to £1,100 per
woman. This is a relatively low cost
to help each woman to start to regain
control of her life after being raped. Yet in
2007, over half of all rape crisis centres in
England and Wales faced closure due to
lack of funding.

3. Helping women from ethnic

Photograph supplied by Julian Nieman/Refuge
minorities
Women from ethnic minorities are
particularly at risk after experiencing
violence. Cultural taboos, as well as
language difficulties, not knowing where
and how to seek help, and perhaps
a fear of deportation compound their
vulnerability and isolation. They may also
experience forms of violence that other
women in the UK are rarely subjected to,
such as ‘honour crimes’, forced marriage
and female genital mutilation.

Charities such as Aanchal can provide

advice, counselling and support in many
different languages, so that victims can
confidently discuss complex emotional
and legal issues with someone who
understands the pressures they face.

It has just been the

drugs that have kept
2. Dealing with rape me working. I have tried
Rape crisis centres help women to deal to leave prostitution,
with the trauma of sexual violence. At
these centres, victims can receive the
but I just feel that I’m
kind of counselling and support that going round in a big
helps them overcome their mental health
problems. bloody circle. It’s hard,
I have been raped, Centres like the Tyneside Rape Crisis
you know, trying to quit
beaten, sold, cut Centre and Glasgow Rape Crisis drugs, and like when
Centre help victims of rape to come to
with knives and terms with their experiences. Following
you’ve got no money…
threatened. this support, clients are more able to deal And it’s the easiest way
with the trauma of the rape, their mental
health improves and they became less to get money…
dependent on medication. For some
of their clients this results in improved

6
Southall Black Sisters (SBS), based in
Ealing, is a unique service with specialist
knowledge about the law and domestic
violence. Much of the charity’s work is
focused on legal matters for its clients,
from inquests to divorces to getting
indefinite leave to remain. It has particular
expertise with immigration issues. SBS
also gives expert testimonies in court
to help women to highlight the specific
social, cultural and religious pressures
that black and minority ethnic women
might experience.
4. Leaving prostitution behind
Many women are pushed into prostitution
by problems they have experienced
earlier on in life, like childhood abuse.
Street prostitution is characterised
by intense violence, so many women
turn to drugs as a coping mechanism.
This, along with criminal records,
homelessness and mental health
problems, stops them from getting a job
and escaping the violence that goes hand
in hand with selling sex on the streets.
The overwhelming majority of women
involved in prostitution want to leave this
abuse behind, but they find it incredibly
difficult to do so on their own.
Donors can fund charities that help
prevent sexually exploited girls from
becoming involved in adult prostitution.
Other charities focus on tackling the
demand for prostitution, using public
education campaigns to raise awareness
about the realities of prostitution.
Charities that help women to exit
prostitution and leave the violence behind
them also deserve funding. They do this
by helping women to overcome other
issues, such as substance misuse and
homelessness. Examples include One25
in Bristol. In 2006 over one third of the 52
women receiving One25’s one-to-one
support stopped working in prostitution.
5. Tackling trafficking
Human trafficking is driven by the
demand for prostitution in the UK,
and the supply of vulnerable girls from
countries such as Lithuania and Thailand.
Trafficked women are often subjected
to prolonged and horrific acts of
violence and abuse. Their psychological
symptoms compare to those of victims
of torture. These women badly need help
to get away from their trafficker, a safe
place to stay, psychological support to
get over their experience, as well as help
integrating into the UK, or reintegrating
back into their home country.
The POPPY Project (part of Eaves
Housing for Women) in London is
the largest victim support project for
trafficked women in the UK. As well
as providing safe accommodation for
trafficked women, the Poppy Project
helps each woman to reintegrate into
her home country or into the UK. They
might, for example, help a woman who
has never been free in the UK to learn to
catch a bus or arrange for her to learn
English in a safe place.
Hard facts
• Violence against women has
affected almost one in two women
in the UK.
• Last year, more women
experienced domestic violence
than got divorced.
• Two women are killed each week
by a current or former partner.
• Only one in seven rapes is
reported to the police; of these,
only 6% result in a conviction.
• Around 3,000 forced marriages
take place every year.
• 66,000 women in the UK have
been subjected to genital
mutilation.
• Women in prostitution are 18 times
more likely to be murdered than
the general population.
• Each year, violence against
women costs society more than
£40bn.
Photograph supplied by BigStock
7
 Choosing a charity
to support
Making a difference New Philanthropy Capital (NPC)
Private funding in this area can drive is a charity that helps donors

Hard immense change, making women and understand how to make the greatest
Hard knock life: Violence against women

their children safe from abuse, and difference to people’s lives. We

knock life holding perpetrators to account for their
actions. Here are some examples of what
provide independent research and
tailored advice on the most effective
April 2008
Justine Järvinen
Angela Kail

Violence against women

Iona Miller
donations can achieve: and rewarding ways to support
A guide for donors and funders

charities.
• £20,000 could fund a support worker
to help women overcome rape. Our research guides donors—
individuals, foundations and
• £18,000 could pay for English classes
businesses—on how to support
for victims of trafficking, which helps
causes such as education, cancer
them settle in the UK and find a job.
treatment and mental health. As well
New Philanthropy CapitalsApril 2008

4715.
• £25,000 could pay for a caseworker to as identifying the areas of greatest
help more women exit prostitution. need, we highlight organisations that
could use donations to best effect,
• £114,000 would pay for a project at a
%

and the results that these donations

T H E S T A P L E S T R U S T

hospital, enabling pregnant domestic

might achieve.
violence victims to be identified early.

• £680,000 would pay for a six-bedroom • NPC’s research, including

Hard knock life is the product of 18 Hard knock life, the full report
house for victims of trafficking, allowing
months of detailed desk research on violence against women,
more victims to escape being sexually
and consultations with 40 experts can be downloaded from
exploited.
(including the government, police, www.philanthropycapital.org
academics, authors and charities). By tackling violence against women,
donors can also help to tackle other • For tailored advice on supporting
We identified 150 key charities and problems that are closely linked—such charities that are tackling violence
visited more than 40 of them. We as mental health issues, homelessness, against women, contact NPC
analysed some charities in more detail substance abuse, offending and child on 020 7785 6300 or e-mail
and we recommend nine charities abuse. info@philanthropycapital.org
for donors to support. Our two-page
3 Downstream, 1 London Bridge,
charity recommendations provide Violence against women is a hard topic,
London SE1 9BG.
a snapshot of charity activities and but your funding can make change
highlight where donors can have the happen. A company limited by guarantee.
greatest impact. Registered in England and Wales No.
4244715.
The recommendations and the report
are available for download from our Registered charity number 1091450.
website: www.philanthropycapital.org.

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