Head of Refuge fears they may be forced to close...

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Just bumping. There's also a thread about this in Site Stuff, if anyone has any ideas to contribute, please?

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I think anything that raises awareness has to be good - though I also think there's something stomach churning about DV victims having to rely on 11 y.os doing sponsored walks.
That's not a criticism of your suggestion, minimathsmouse, it's just an feeling of OMG about something so crucial losing government support.
And yes, of course, it's totally sexist.

"The direct cost to the economy of domestic violence alone in England & Wales in one year is £6billion"
www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/pages/the_facts.html

I think the cuts in funding are counter-productive then.

According to EVAW 3 million women are subject to violence and assault every year in the uk. Look how many women come out in support of breast cancer charities, is it not possible that with the right media coverage and encouragement that many women would take part in fund raising for this.

DS 11yrs wants to do a sponsored walk, I might suggest he raise money for our local refuge.

I think you're right MyNameIs, i was told last year by my WA that funding was being cut in England, but not here in Wales .. not sure if that's down to the LAs or something put in place by the Welsh Assembly.. Whichever it is, it must be separate from England.

Whoever is responsible, i agree - Sexist to the extreme! Very very sad.

Signed the petition and shared it on Facebook.

Bastards.

Totally agree Re: institutionally sexist.

The money is there (Central Government)

Will they pay?

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This is appalling.

I'm sure the Government can put some protective measures in, somehow? Aren't there areas exempt from LA cuts?

Aye, I agree with that.

I'm also considering a fundraising event in aid of our local refuge. But no idea of what to do. No idea at all.

Is there anything else we can do to help?

I'm also considering meeting my local MP, although, he's a Tory... And very loyal to Tory views, so not sure how that'd go down. :/

I can't critical think early in the morning.

Have shared the article too.

Couldn't sign the petition as it says I already have, though I don't remember doing that! Though I had a few doubts about the wording anyway, it asks the govt to stop cuts but judging from the article, it seems that technically it's the local authorities making the decisions about how much to fund them (within their available budget). So I suspect the govt could try to cop out and say it's "not down to them" blah blah... but at least it will show that people care.

Sandra Horley has gone up in my estimations after her comments. Do we cancel each other out?

The awful irony is that Clare's Law is unlikely to have saved <a class="break-all" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13506721www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13506721" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Clare Wood and Sandra recognises that. He shouldn't have been in a position to harm her. In my book, he shouldn't have been in a position to even meet her, given that he was a danger to the public.

As for Refuge, I'll repeat the point I've made on other threads - anyone on MN who recommends Women's Aid, Rape Crisis or going to a refuge should make a donation. And any man who wants to know what he can do to support women and/or feminism should open their wallet in that direction too.

OneLieIn, I too was a little taken back by her reaction, I thought "Claires" dad came over very well and spoke very positvly in support of empowering women. He quoted all the stats and put forward all the arguments about dv being a pattern of abuse starting off with disrespect leading up to physicle harm.

Frothy I agree too the numbers of people in the first flush would be small, as unless the first through 8 dates end in some kind of attack, those seriouse dv threats are playing the long game where by they take their time to gain control of the woman. It strikes me though that every week on mn we see threads started asking for advice about an incident that has made a woman wonder about her partner. Surely that is what Claire's law would be there to do, allow someone in a relationship to see if the partner has form and make a decision from there. I agree the real question is what you do with that information as in not taking a "nothing found" as evidence of no problem. That though is an educational thing and the more dv is reported the larger the database will become leading to more warnings.

sorry, OneLieIn, x-posted... I'm just hoping her comments don't get misconstrued too much. It does require a little critical thinking to understand where she's coming from, in a sense. It's one of those things that looks good on paper, but then, I'm not sure it'd work in practise.

Thank you, PDP. I was one of the lucky ones. I got out whilst I was still young. But I'm scared this is going to trap so many women.

Frothy, you may be right and I won't clutter this thread with my thoughts. But the head of refuge lost a massive amount of credibility with me this morning. I wonder how many others had the same reaction as me? It would be a shame if her comments damaged Refuge.

Fb it is.
Good explanation re. Clare's Law, Frothy - and sorry to hear about what happened to you.

Thank you, minimathmouse. :)

OneLieIn, Claire's Law is discussed in another thread. As hard as it is to say it, I suspect she's right.

Firstly, when you start dating someone, it's rare that the first thought in your head is "whoa, they might be abusive". Add to that, this means that the onus is put on the victim to find out if their partner is abusive. I'd been with my ex three years before I first sought help. Claire's Law, although the heart is in the right place, just puts the onus on the victim. It also doesn't account for relationships where the abuser's ex didn't report the abuse. On top of that, had my ex's ex told me he abused her, I'm not sure I'd have believed her. I warned the woman he got with after me. six months later, I got an email, simply telling me I was right, and she was sorry she didn't believe me. I never found out what happened.

Have shared the article to face book will tweet later. I'm going to see what I can find out about these centres that Ken Clarke mentioned. It was on Radio 4 at 6pm.

StarsAndBoulevards posted it in AIBU, but it got pulled; some complexity about petitions were only allowed, provided the sole point of the thread wasn't to get signatures...

Right, if anyone has twitter, facebook, any other links, PLEASE share the petition? The more recognition we can get for it, the more likely we are to get it discussed. In the mean time, I'm going to have a brain storm tomorrow, come up with some other plans, if possible.