https://www.riverlight.org.uk/campaign
Riverlight has launched a new campaign called: ‘In the Judge's Words', which has been running since February 2024.
This campaign exposed the dehumanising language and attitudes that victims and survivors of abuse have endured from judges and magistrates in family court proceedings. Riverlight conducted research through collecting first-hand accounts from survivors who recount appalling statements made by those intended to uphold justice and protect the vulnerable. The findings from this campaign are deeply disturbing. Examples include judges minimising or dismissing abuse as not being "that bad," insinuating that domestic violence is a "50/50 thing," and even stating that a victim had “goaded” the perpetrator into strangling her.
Many of the judges' statements displayed an alarming tendency to cast doubt on survivors' experiences, question their credibility, and shift blame onto them for the abuse they suffered. Survivors were admonished for actions like being in a shelter to escape abuse, accused of being spiteful towards the dad for breastfeeding, and even for exhibiting symptoms of trauma like PTSD. These kinds of victim-blaming attitudes from the very authorities tasked with ensuring justice and protecting the vulnerable enable a perpetuation of abuse and a culture where survivors' experiences are systematically dismissed or minimised.
This campaign resonated deeply and so far has reached a large audience of nearly half a million people, with thousands of comments, across all our social media platforms. Each sharing their own horrifying and similar ordeal. It highlighted just how pervasive and common place this treatment of survivors was within the family courts.