How these women's daily walks are helping domestic abuse victims

Some Women Need to Walk have donated their daily exercise to a walk in honour of those who need to walk out of abusive homes.

In Britain and Bristol the number of calls to a National Domestic Abuse helpline has increased since lockdown began. Refuge, which runs the National Domestic Abuse helpline, has reported calls to its helpline increased by 25 per cent across the UK since the beginning of lockdown on March 23.

While police in Bristol say they have not seen a significant rise in reports, they are monitoring the situation closely. But the rise in helpline calls has led one group of women to take further action.

As part of a response, a volunteer organisation named Some Women Need to Walk in Bristol have supported groups of women to take public action by donating their daily exercise to a walk in honour of those who need to walk out of abusive homes, but for whom the government have not organised sufficient emergency accommodation.

The women across the country have been making their own banners to share a national request to the government.

Almost 80,000 people have signed up to join the campaign, with hundreds of MPs and women donating their public exercise across the country.

The campaign was founded by Martha Jephcott and Charlotte Fischer. Co-founder Martha Jephcott said: “The government have announced funding for domestic violence, but explicitly saying it is going to charities, to fill the gaps from years of under funding.

"That’s fantastic for those organisations, and the women who can be supported by phone lines or help lines, but we’re focusing on those women at one extreme end of the spectrum, who are in danger of being injured and killed unless they have somewhere to go to.

"For those women, it’s crucial they can access emergency accommodation, such as the hotels being offered at cost as they are doing in France, or private flats, which London has begun to use” In Bristol and the south west, it has been identified that the area has a shortfall in the number of spaces of refuge for women who have suffered domestic abuse, according to Women's Aid.

n our city, Next Link has specialist workers who help women to put safety plans in place so they could remain in their own homes, and there is an independent domestic abuse advisor who works within Bristol Royal Infirmary to provide crisis support to patients in A&E.

Charlotte Fischer, co-founder of the campaign said: “This issue is particularly important because even before Covid-19, three out of every five women who tried to access shelters in order to leave domestic violence were turned away because of lack of space.

"In the words of Sisters Uncut, “how can she leave if there’s nowhere to go?” We can perhaps add another question now, which is “why is there nowhere to go at a time of thousands of empty venues?”

Source: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/how-womens-daily-walks-helping-4139866