A CHARITY supporting women and children suffering domestic abuse has launched an emergency appeal to help them escape their abusers this winter.
Solace Women’s Aid provides vital services for women suffering from domestic violence through its refuges and safehouses across London.
This month it revealed that the combination of a cold winter and Covid-19 lockdown restrictions has increased the dangers facing domestic abuse victims by creating “further insecurity”, while “adding additional mental, physical, and economic stress on survivors”.
“Winter is isolating and stressful at the best of times and it can be a time that many of us dread,” Solace Patron Simrin Bakshi Choudhrie explained.
“For the women and children Solace supports, this winter in particular will be one of their toughest ever,” she added.
“Trying to survive cold weather restrictions, the pandemic imposed restrictions and domestic abuse while in lockdown, is beyond comprehension, pushing women and their children into even more vulnerable and dangerous situations.”
The service, which is headquartered in north London, is the capital’s leading specialist charity in supporting women and children experiencing domestic abuse and sexual violence.
It provides lifesaving support to more than 22,000 women and children each year and relies on funding and donations to do so.
Part of that funding comes from the Irish Government’s Emigrant Support Fund, which provides a grant for a specific Irish & Irish Traveller Outreach Project within Solace.
This service supports around 70 Irish women and children each year, via intensive one-to-one casework support, group work, and advice helpline calls, and is led by Solace’s Nancy Carney.
In April 2020, at the start of the first Government lockdown, the charity highlighted the increased risk faced by women living in enforced isolation with their abusers and being unable to access help as a result.
They launched a Stay at Home Emergency Appeal to help support the needs of their increasingly vulnerable clients.
Now, nearly 12 months later, they have found further pressures continue to put these women in more dangerous situations.
“Women are being forced to flee with nothing and create new homes with nothing, without the support of loved one due to COVID-19 rules, further compounding their feelings of isolation, anxiety, and fear,” the charity explains.
[We are] supporting women and children who are living in empty homes with empty kitchen cupboards – not knowing when they will be able to eat a proper meal or sleep in a proper bed,” they add.
“This is why Solace is launching its emergency winter appeal.”
Through their winter appeal, the charity will make funds available to support their clients, to “buy vital kitchen items to help prepare meals, feed their families when universal credit has taken weeks to come through and help with debt when they have been forced out of work due to the virus”, they explain.
“With your donations we have paid for taxis and hotels for women to find immediate safety after fleeing domestic abuse who would who had nowhere else to turn,” they add.
“Your money is helping ensure women can heat their homes this winter rather than be living in freezing conditions with their children.”
Since the start of the pandemic, Solace’s emergency fund has already helped over 200 families by providing them with money in the form of grants to enable women to have control over their lives and buy essential items they need to get by.
“Financial abuse is also part of domestic abuse – Solace believes it is vital for women to have control over their finances as part of their journey to recovery and healing,” the organisation explains.
“As Patron of Solace, I have heard directly from women about what their realities truly look like and why the services we run are needed more than ever, Ms Bakshi Choudhrie adds.
“I urge you all to support our emergency winter appeal, so we can reach out to many more women and children who are suffering and give them the life-saving support they deserve and need.”
To donate to Solace Women’s Aid’s Emergency Winter Appeal click here.
See More: Domestic Abuse, Solace Women's Aid, Winter Fund
