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Racism and other intersecting barriers to accessing safety and support

We need to work actively to make spaces and services safe and inclusive for women from all backgrounds and situations, and remove barriers to support due to migrant status, ethnicity, language, neurodiversity, disability and other aspects of lived experience.

rainbow flower

Racism and other intersecting barriers to accessing safety and support

We need to work actively to make spaces and services safe and inclusive for women from all backgrounds and situations, and remove barriers to support due to migrant status, ethnicity, language, neurodiversity, disability and other aspects of lived experience.

Communities like ours need to work actively to provide safe spaces for women who have experienced domestic/sexual violence often in addition to immigration abuse, harmful practices such as FGM, sexual exploitation, forced marriage, trafficking and HBV/A perpetrated through varying cultural and social lenses by intimate partners, family members and or community members. A safe space may be a specialist service, or a respectful and anti-racist organisation providing help around domestic abuse. A safe space is often needed to address other barriers, particularly for women who are destitute and homeless, or living in unstable or unsafe housing without support networks. Safe spaces are needed by migrant women who also have complex immigration issues, no recourse to public funds, face racial discrimination and harassment, hate crime and economic exploitation. Being trauma informed also means properly listening to and hearing women’s and girls’ lived experience, in all its diverse, cultural and unique aspects, and shaping our understanding of safe spaces accordingly.

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This service has saved my mental health and has provided a safe service whilst helping with coping mechanisms for the future.

- Lena

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Voices Impact Report 2023-2024

Bath MP Wera Hobhousemakes urgent appeal for the lifeline charity giving “Voices” to victims of Domestic Abuse

Bath MP makes urgent appeal for the lifeline charity giving “Voices” to victims of Domestic Abuse  Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, called for a debate in Parliament today (June 12) on providing greater Government support for long-term domestic abuse recovery services, rather than merely for crisis and risk-prevention. Her comments follow her recent…

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Wera Hobhouse Bath MP Speaks to Government to safeguard services like Voices, who are a life-line for survivors in Bath, offering long-term support

  ·  8,000 people experience domestic abuse each year in B&NES. Survivors need wraparound support to rebuild their lives after suffering the trauma of abuse. That’s why I called on the Government to safeguard services like Voices, who are a life-line for survivors in Bath, offering long-term support See the video of Wera speaking in Parliament…