Almost 20,000 reports of domestic violence against women and children were made to Women's Aid last year.
The organisation's annual report shows one in four women who contacted them were experiencing abuse from an ex-husband or partner.
Some of the cases last year involved death threats, women being denied medical help and their house being set on fire with the children still inside.
Women’s Aid is calling for greater recognition of the risk to children, especially during access arrangements with domestic violence perpetrators.
Margaret Martin, Director of Women’s Aid, outlines some of the emotional, physical, sexual and financial abuse disclosed last year:
“Women told our confidential services that they had been isolated from family and friends, called derogatory names, had their lives and their safety threatened. Women disclosed that they were hit, beaten with weapons, stabbed and cut with knives and strangled. For some women they were beaten and strangled while they were pregnant. We heard from women that their partners had raped them, coerced them into sex, had prevented access to family planning and some had explicit videos and images made and shared online without their consent. Many women said that because of financial abuse they were being forced to choose between staying in an abusive relationship and facing poverty. Financial abuse disclosed in 2018 included partners running up debt in women’s names, women being denied access to the family finances and women’s salaries or social welfare being controlled.”
