FAMILY
DOMESTIC ABUSE, THERAF ANDYOU
By Sal Davidson, MCO, RAF Honington
Aquick online search on domestic abuse will throw up all manner of information, from charities and organisations set up to assist victims, to the statistics which show this issue remains prevalent across all sections of our society in the UK.
In arecent Parliamentary Briefing Paper1 statistics from 2014/15 showed that an estimated 1.3 million women and 600,000 men were the victims of domestic abuse. It also estimates that 27.1% of women and 13.2% of men had experienced (any) domestic abuse since the age of 16 -equivalent to an estimated 4.5 million female victims and 2.2 million male victims between the ages of 16 and 59.
Evidence gathered by domestic abuse charity Women’s Aid, suggests 2women are killed by their partner or ex-partner each week, 3women commit suicide as aresult of domestic abuse each week and 30 women will attempt suicide as aresult of domestic abuse each week. That’s 260 preventable deaths every year.
Domestic abuse does not fall within aparticular age, race or social demographic and although women are far more likely to be victims, men suffer too. Anyone can be avictim from celebrities such as Rihanna, who suffered domestic abuse at the hands of her then boyfriend Chris Brown in 2009, to the young wives in our community to the Senior Aircraftman living in the block.
40 Autumn 2016
The RAF is areflection of the society from which we recruit and sadly,ifit happens out there, it happens in the Service as well. Domestic abuse is a problem, so what is the RAF doing it about it and how can you help afriend, relative or yourself break free from the cycle?
The term “domestic abuse” covers awide range of behaviours including physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and as of December 2015, includes the acts of coercive and controlling
behaviour.Domestic abuse happens within an intimate or family relationship and applies to everyone over the age of 16.
Domestic abuse can be hidden by the nature of the crime and until recently some forms of domestic abuse weren’t even classed as acrime. Service lifestyles can complicate the problem. Families move often, the availability of policing and welfare support differs across the RAF,the victim may be scared about losing their home and family income or the possible impact on the perpetrator’s career prospects if offences are reported. For these reasons, the Service lifestyle can often stop victims reporting abuse and ultimately leaving an abusive relationship.
For many years the Ministry of Defence treated domestic abuse as aprivate life issue but this has changed recently with the release of atri-service policy (JSP 913) on
raf-ff.org.uk
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