Tag: policy

The wilful ignorance of a policy mismatch

Government often talks about evidence-based policy.

– and calls for further evidence and research from those who argue that policies or laws need to be changed.

But part of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 is a classic example of Government ignoring existing evidence – evidence that was presented to them in the consultation on developing the Act – and setting law and policy up to fail.

– to fail the tens of thousands of women and children who cross local authority boundaries to escape domestic violence and abuse.

As this research shows, the harms and losses caused by the perpetrator of domestic violence and abuse are often further compounded by how the state chooses to respond:

  • the services it does/doesn’t provide
  • the capacity and location of those services
  • the eligibility for those services – which often focuses on location

Despite the evidence Government received on the domestic violence journeys across local authority boundaries, it chose to devolve the duties in Part 4 of the Act to provide services and safe accommodation to Tier 1 local authorities. It chose to create a mismatch between the scale of service responses, and the functional scale that women and children actually need – and deserve.

In a new podcast conversation, the problems and harms that follow from this are explored – including the cliff-edges created at local authority boundaries that women and children frequently fall off.

And the problems are rendered invisible at the national scale by the lack of data that crosses these boundaries. Both needs assessments and provision decisions are confined within local authorities, and the data that used to exist England-wide (and which is used in this Journeyscapes research) is no longer aggregated nationally and made available for research or to inform policy. It is a wilful ignorance of the impact of devolving service responsibilities to the wrong scale.

As the podcast highlights:

“the losses and the harms that are caused by the abuser in intimate partner violence, are being compounded by the losses and the harms which are caused by the state.”

Stuck in limbo

Women and children’s journeys to escape domestic violence and abuse can be long, slow and difficult. The Women’s Journeyscapes research provides evidence of the long distances travelled, the multiple stages, and the complexities of time on the move.

It is also an issue of control: women often have very little control over when and where they move and whether they can resettle.

Beyond the force of the abuse from the perpetrator, there is the force of the systems and agencies women and children have to access for help and support; and they can find themselves forced to relocate more often than they need to, and forced to stay put when they need to relocate.

Women and children may access a women’s refuge, and benefit from the specialist and peer support there… but then find that they get stuck in limbo – unable to move on because of the lack of suitable housing and support.

This not only stalls their recovery journey, it means they are taking up a space in a refuge that another family desperately needs.

Women’s Aid’s latest annual audit estimates that more referrals to women’s refuges in England are turned away than those which are able to be accepted; with 11,305 women[1] supported in a refuge and 17,028 referrals declined in 2023-24.

And this is in a context where Women’s Aid records that actual refuge spaces have increased (from 3,935 in 2019-20 to 4,551 in 2023-24). However, they note that the vacancies recorded on the Routes to Support system have decreased in the same period: from 10,340[2] to 7,550)…

So, what’s going on?

A significant factor is women and children staying longer in refuges…. Not just because they need to, but because of a lack of options to leave: being stuck in limbo.

The Women’s Journeyscapes research used administrative data from 2003-2011 to devise a formula for the types and capacity of domestic abuse services needed, and found a mean length of stay in accommodation services of 3.4 months. This would mean that one refuge room/flat could accommodate over 3.2 families per year. Stays were longer in London – nearly 6 months – so that only 2 families a year could be supported in a London refuge space. However, the latest figures from Women’s Aid show how much worse the situation has become, with the mean length of stay approaching 5 months – and individual women may stay much longer. Longer stays reduce the capacity of the refuges around the country – down to below 2.5 families per refuge space per year.

No wonder the vacancies available are going down – cutting off an option for escape and support to thousands of women and children trying to leave domestic violence each year.

More refuge spaces – providing specialist and peer support for women and children – are desperately needed; as well as a whole infrastructure of other kinds of support. But we also need timely housing options for moving on from women’s refuges, so that women and children can resettle and rebuild their lives after abuse.

[1] Women’s Aid 2025, Table. C10. Page 75

[2] Women’s Aid 2025, Table. C6. Page 74

Women’s Aid. (2025) The Annual Audit 2025, Bristol: Women’s Aid. https://www.womensaid.org.uk/annual-audit-2025/

Serious Games – Journeyscape or Journeybreak?

The women’s journeys card game developed as part of this research will be played in a workshop session this Friday at an international geography conference. Players will attempt to navigate journey stages and distances away from abuse, towards settled accommodation in a safe location. On the way, they will face the ‘chance’ elements that can allow them to leap forward or fall back on their journey.

It is part of a session on “Serious Games” at the RGS-IBG Conference in London.

“Serious games” use the interactions and norms of games – from playing cards or board games to online gaming – to engage and inform in ways that other methods cannot. They may be used in policy contexts to involve decision-makers in addressing problems, in practice contexts to encourage professionals to deepen their understanding and in teaching contexts to generate insights and empathy.

They are still games: fun and entertainment, even competitiveness, are important, but the games also address serious issues and aim to achieve real world outcomes. The goal is not the game itself, but the discussion and potential action that follow.

Serious Games are used to involve participants in thinking about a wide range of difficult issues: examples can be found from migration, to health, to forestry.

Games in the session address a wide range of geographical issues from mapping flood recovery to tackling racist narratives and hateful messages, from mapping journeys for women escaping domestic violence to system mapping future access to fruit and vegetables, and to mapping journeys in the USA to access abortion.

Serious and difficult topics – and the workshop provides the opportunity for manageable debates and respectful interactions by using the method of “Serious Games”.

What can employers do (including about the abusers)?

Relocation disrupts so many aspects of anyone’s life.

Even if it’s a chosen and planned relocation, there will be changes and admin: things you can no longer access, as well as positive new opportunities.

Forced relocation – when the only way to escape domestic abuse is to uproot your life and go away – is usually massively disruptive… in terms of leaving behind or losing friends, possessions, college, work, school, hopes and dreams….

Work is a big factor for many women – whether they can be honest with their employer, whether they can expect any help or understanding. Large employers may be able to arrange transfers and support, so that a woman can retain or resume her career once she is in a safer place away from the abuse. All employers can do something to support – to reduce the risks from the abuser, and to reduce the losses and costs.

This has long been recognised by some employers, and is increasingly championed by organisations such as the Employers’ Initiative on Domestic Abuse (EIDA), which is free to join for all employers prepared to take effective action on domestic abuse.

This builds on decades of work by some employers, but patchy responses by others.

And it is notable that the focus seems to be primarily on what employers can do to “care for employees affected by domestic abuse”.

This is all well and good… but perpetrators are employees too. What are employers doing about perpetrators?

Often not enough.

EIDA talks about “providing education and support to help perpetrators of domestic abuse to stop” – but employers could often be more proactive about identifying perpetrators in their employ, taking action, and actively creating a culture where the attitudes behind such abusive behaviour are simply not acceptable. The most recent government report in 2021 found that whilst 66% of the employers who responded had a company policy on domestic abuse, only 20% addressed perpetrators.

Employers have had policy, procedure and guidance on responding to domestic violence and abuse for decades – but there’s still a lot that could be improved. An early example – from London Borough of Greenwich in 1997 – does give significant focus to the employer’s role towards perpetrators (not just victim-survivors). It offers guidance on assessing relevance and appropriateness of job duties, considering misuse of access to information, and issues of bringing the employer into disrepute.

Re-reading the guidance 27 years on highlights how many more recent employers’ initiatives still don’t focus enough on the cause of the problem: the abusers.

Local elections – what is local about domestic violence?

As we approach local elections in England and Wales on 2nd May 2024, local and national politicians are setting the priorities for local authorities: for the funding they receive and spend – and the services they spend it on.

Where are responses to domestic violence and abuse in these priorities?

With many local authorities struggling to cover their statutory duties, such as social care and child protection, and facing loud criticism over bin collections and potholes, where do domestic abuse services fit into their plans?

These plans matter – from advice and information services, to specialist refuges and accommodation: all these are services that national government has devolved to local decision-making.

But domestic violence and abuse isn’t local. Not only are men violent and abusive to their women partners in every local authority in the country… but, to escape that threat, many women and children cross local authority boundaries to seek help and support – as well as safety.

The maps show the domestic violence journeys in one year to services for just five cities, as women (often with children) travel to or from Manchester, Newcastle, Plymouth, Southampton and Birmingham. They show women having to leave their local authority to get the help they need.

One year of domestic violence journeys to and from Manchester to services
One year of domestic violence journeys to and from Newcastle upon Tyne to services
One year of domestic violence journeys to and from Plymouth to services
One year of domestic violence journeys to and from Southampton to services
One year of domestic violence journeys to and from Birmingham to services

But women and children can only make such journeys if the services exist.

Local politicians may pledge to fund – or to cut funds to – domestic violence services, as part of seeking votes in the May elections. It’s a patchwork of separate – unconnected – decisions. And decisions that do not only affect local voters – but affect the tens of thousands of women and children who end up needing services somewhere else – not in their original local area.

It’s an ongoing mismatch between the scale of need and the scale of response – further cemented in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.

We need services everywhere, because perpetrators are abusive to their partners or ex-partners everywhere; but we need a network across the whole country – not at risk from hundreds of separate local cuts and local priorities.

Do the uncounted not count?

Women on the move due to domestic abuse are often hiding. They shouldn’t have to, of course…

But if not enough is happening to tackle the perpetrator, then women and children frequently have to move away – to try and keep safe. If the authorities will not prevent the abuser threatening her – and if he won’t change – then women uproot themselves and their children and try to disappear.

They may have to keep hidden for months, for years, forever – breaking contact with work, school, friends, family…

And hiding from the perpetrator also keeps them hidden from other aspects of ordinary life. It also means that they slip between the cracks of all kinds of administrative processes – falling off waiting lists, missing crucial appointments, losing their eligibility for services.

They are also uncounted in another way. All the social surveys in the UK sample the settled population – using the Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File – and so this excludes people in insecure, shared, and communal accommodation. Women on the move due to domestic violence may be in temporary accommodation for years – they may never get back to properly settled accommodation.

So the key surveys that are relied upon for prevalence of domestic violence and abuse (the Crime Surveys in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) systematically exclude anyone on the move or in unsettled accommodation. They exclude the people most acutely affected by the domestic abuse that they claim to count.

There was discussion of the problem at the RadStats conference in London on Saturday; and there is some wider acknowledgement – the Inclusive Data Taskforce (IDTF) reported in 2021 on the issue, and the Office for National Statistics has recently published research with 40 women on temporary accommodation due to domestic abuse.

But this doesn’t fill the gaps – there’s nothing more substantial to address the chronically uncounted; and the implications of them being missing from statistics. The supposed prevalence of domestic abuse – measured by the Crime Surveys – is widely reported; but it is barely acknowledged that the figure is potentially badly skewed by the missing women on the move.

And the missing are predominantly women – not only are women more likely to experience domestic violence and abuse, but when men experience domestic violence and abuse they are less likely to relocate and therefore exit the settled population sampling frame. So the prevalence for men and women are differentially skewed – meaning that the figures just cannot be relied upon.

So – from the assumption of only surveying the settled population, comes distorted statistics and significant exclusions.

And it matters – whenever the supposed prevalence of domestic violence and abuse from Crime Surveys is used to assess need, or make decisions about whether to provide services – and services for whom – the basis is flawed… and the decisions are flawed. And the message seems to be that the uncounted – women and children on the move due to domestic abuse – just don’t count…

Arrival and Departure – the spatial churn of domestic abuse

Within the UK, many people find themselves forced to relocate, whether due to housing evictions, dispersal of asylum seekers, clearance of housing estates for regeneration projects, or homelessness policies and practice. These non-voluntary mobilities affect individuals differently, but are structurally imposed.

The forced relocation of women and children due to domestic abuse may be seen as somewhat different – with the journeys initially forced by the abusive perpetrator. However, even at that point, there is the question of why the state isn’t holding him accountable – controlling his abuse so that women and children do not have to uproot themselves and relocate…

And, often, after that initial relocation, the domestic abuse journeys are further forced by state policies, availability (or not) of support services, and the implications of crossing administrative boundaries. So the journeys, in their multiple stages over time and place, are often structurally imposed in many ways.

With other non-voluntary mobilities, the flow of forced journeys may be in one direction: forcing people out of areas that are being ‘gentrified’, forcing asylum seekers out of major cities, or out of residential areas. And the focus of those who want to support such displaced persons is therefore on welcoming new arrivals, with the authorities focusing on the ‘arrival infrastructure’ including civil society and social professionals. The ReROOT Project is currently working across a range of locations in Europe, to improve practices, policies and imaginaries of arrival infrastructures; and a workshop in London on 9-10 October will explore the context and responses in the UK.

Thinking about arrival infrastructures, the forced internal displacement due to domestic abuse has parallels – all the difficulties of starting again with your life in a new, unknown, unchosen place. Individuals’ experiences may be similar, in terms of the effects and needs, but there is also a key difference in the aggregate effect in each place. For, at the same time as that arrival, there is also likely to be a departure – another woman, often with children, fleeing domestic violence. They won’t be aware of each other – their journeys will often be secret and hidden to escape the abuser – but domestic abuse occurs in all places; and journeys are from everywhere to everywhere.

Administrative data from services, analysed in this research, shows this spatial churn – that most local authorities experience around the same number of domestic violence departures as arrivals. But the lack of net effect is made up of a mass of journeys and disruption for individuals. So, a rights-based response to the disruption and harms of forced relocation, as well as the harms from the abuse, would create an infrastructure for both arrivals and departures – a coherent infrastructure so that women and children can go as far as they need and stay as near as they can.

Journeyscape or Journeybreak?

Domestic violence isn’t in any way a game, but it is important to use all kinds of ways to prompt discussion and thinking about the issues – and a new card ‘game’ aims to do just that. “Serious games” use the interactions and norms of games – from playing cards or board games to online gaming – to engage and inform in ways that other methods cannot.

Journeyscape or Journeybreak? is a card game about women and children’s journeys to escape domestic abuse. The game draws on the British Academy-funded research project “Women on the Move: the Journeyscapes of Domestic Violence” using examples of the pressure points women experience and the help or hindrance from people, policies, services and luck.

Relocation is only one possible strategy for women but tens of thousands of women and children relocate in the UK due to domestic abuse, often in multi-stage journeys over time and distance, and accessing a range of services and support. The game presents a simplified journey of multiple stages and stopping points, with the players gathering the points they need for the next stage, whilst also experiencing the ‘chance’ elements that can allow them to leap forward or fall back on their journey.

The examples of ‘chance’ – positive and negative – are taken from women’s accounts shared during the research, and the cards showcase women’s images from participatory photography groupwork carried out with Solace Women’s Aid. The cards are therefore an expression of women’s creativity and insights, and the game aims to highlight how journeys away from violence can be either stalled and thwarted by ‘journeybreaks’ or ‘journeyscaped’ by law, policy, services and support.

Journeyscape or Journeybreak? will be launched at the Social Research Association conference on 15th June 2023 in London. It is part of the “Please Do Touch” gallery – emphasising the importance of in-person interaction with each other and with material objects: the value of actually being able to touch…

Journeyscape or Journeybreak? is a game for 2-4 players and could be used by groups of professionals involved in responding to domestic abuse, as well as individuals who want to understand more about women and children’s journeys.

If you would like a set of cards, please make a donation to Solace Women’s Aid, and then use the contact form of this website to send your postal address.

IDPs in the Global North: Women’s Journeys to Escape Domestic Violence

The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement recognise that people forced to leave their homes become Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

However, tens of thousands of women and children in the UK are displaced due to the human rights violation of violence against women, but they are not recognised or responded to as IDPs. Their individual and hidden journeys to escape violence cause support needs, and a loss of rights, but state and service responses are often inadequate.

What does that say about women’s citizenship in countries of the Global North?

And would using the lens of internal displacement focus minds and actions on more just, effective, and rights-based responses?

A blog post for Researching Internal Displacement discusses the issues and implications of under-recognising women’s displacement in countries of the Global North.

Intersections of Art and Policy

Explore how art can influence perceptions of women’s experiences of home and displacement while championing policy change. Join us for a day of talks, poetry, workshops and an exhibition in collaboration with the Marylebone Project, Mental Fight Club and researcher Janet Bowstead.

Intersections of Art and Policy is a collaborative programme that highlights the wonderful and influential possibilities of art as a medium to discuss and challenge perceptions of women’s experiences of home and displacement, while offering ideas on functional policy measures.

Working in partnership with the Marylebone Project, Mental Fight Club and researcher Janet Bowstead, our programme aims to accentuate the outstanding work that these charities and other groups have been engaged in, providing shelter and skills that empower women facing homelessness while simultaneously championing policy change. 

Programme Synopsis – 23 March 2023, 10am to 4.30pm

Join us for a day of talks, poetry performance, exhibition displays and interactive workshops as we mark the close of our Behind the Door Campaign, which aimed to fundraise for women charities and raise awareness of women homelessness.   

At its core, Intersections of Art and Policy is a celebration of the exceptional women who produced the artworks and photography that will be displayed during the day, and acts as a recognition of their courage, resilience and boldness.  Our programme is only a platform to anchor their voices and allow them to be beacons of change and possibly pioneers of practical policies on women’s issues.    

Part I: Art as Agency  

Art as Agency aims to highlight the misconceptions surrounding women homelessness and breakdown stereotypes, exploring ideas of home and feelings of belonging using art as a premise that enables the possibility of changing people’s perceptions.  

10-11am: Breakfast & Viewing Exhibition Displays

Challenging Perceptions of Homelessness (A voice through the Lens): Artworks by the Marylebone Project in collaboration with the Mental Fight Club and Photographer Marysa Dowling.  

Women’s Journeyscapes: Women and Children Relocating due to Domestic Abuse: Artworks by Women working with Janet Bowstead.  

11-11.30am: Beacons of Change: A Reflection on the Marylebone Project.   

11.30am-12pm: Womens’s Journeyscapes:  Janet Bowstead Interactive Talk in Conversation with Gaynor Tutani.  

12-1pm: Lunch

Part II: Towards Change  

Towards Change aims to explore the challenges related to women homelessness through art and creative workshops to encourage positive change and inspire policy.   

1-3pm: Parallel Workshops in Music and Art Making – Final works to be used in Producing a group Manifesto. (Spaces are limited. Booking required).  

3pm-3.30pm: Performance by Artists and Poets

3.35pm-4pm: Music and Art Making Workshop – Manifesto Presentation

4-4.30pm: Final Remarks and Close