Posted by Researchers at Bristol University have been awarded the single largest grant in Europe to study the care given to victims of domestic violence and their abusers.
The five-year, £1.8million programme aims to improve knowledge which is used to formulate government policy and contribute to international research.
The grant from the National Institute for Health Research was announced on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women – a United Nations-supported day to raise public awareness of domestic abuse.
Women’s activists have marked November 25 as a day against violence since 1981. This date came from the assassination in 1960 of the three Mirabal sisters, political activists in the Dominican Republic, on orders of Dominican ruler Rafael Trujillo.
Professor Gene Feder, principal investigator of PROVIDE (Programme of Research On Violence in Diverse domestic Environments, said: “This grant substantially increases our research capacity to engage with relatively under-studied groups presenting in health care settings.
“Our ultimate goal is practical: improving outcomes for people experiencing domestic violence and abuse by improving the quality of care given by healthcare professionals.”
The research will be led by a cross-faculty team at the University, in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Institute of Psychiatry, London South Bank University, NHS Bristol, Next Link, the lead domestic abuse agency in Bristol, and other third sector organisations within the UK.
The news comes as a series of events across the country attempt to raise the profile of domestic violence. In Bristol, a candlelit vigil, co-ordinated by Bristol City Council, will begin at Queen’s Square at 4.30pm this evening.
The procession will then make its way to the Council House, where two large candles will be lit to symbolise the two women a week who die in the UK as a result of domestic violence.
And it has emerged that, within 18 months, children aged five to 15 will receive classes in schools to prevent abuse as part of an official drive to tackle violence against women and girls.
The government strategy also promises funding for a 24-hour sexual violence helpline, and the development of a separate stalking and harassment helpline to “nip emerging violence in the bud”, according to Home Secretary Alan Johnson.
The moves come as children’s charity the NSPCC showed in new research that a quarter of teenage girls suffer physical violence at the hands of boyfriends, while a third in relationships suffer an unwanted sexual act.
The school classes will focus on helping children to develop respectful relationships and make violence against women and girls unacceptable to young people.
- Professor Feder will be speaking at a conference Hitting Where It Hurts: the hidden costs of domestic violence and abuse in Bristol on Friday. For more details, click here…
Further reading
Do the victims get adequate support? Its a good question and one that needs to be addressed. Often in the eyes of the criminal justice system, once the perpetrator has been convicted the case ends there, however for the victim, domestic abuse can be a life sentence. We must fight and give victims a voice, because who knows… somewhere down the line we all could become a victim.