Camilla: Teach healthy relationships to children

THE Duchess of Cornwall yesterday called for children to be taught to develop healthy and respectful relationships at the earliest possible age to combat domestic abuse.

In a powerful speech, Camilla said: ‘ We need to teach our young men and women what healthy and loving relationships are and that it is never OK to treat anyone with less than respect.’

Last month Camilla revealed in an interview with the Daily Mail that she personally knew people who had either been the victims of violence and coercive control at home or had family members who were.

And in a keynote address to the Women of the World Festival in London yesterday she talked of the ‘corrosive’ effect of the pervading silence around domestic abuse.

She said: ‘I find it almost impossible to think that any friend of mine might be living under that horrific threat without my knowing it, but that is the power of coercive control and violence in the home.

‘It is characterised by silence – silence from those that suffer, silence from those around them, and silence from those who perpetrate abuse. This silence is corrosive. And at its worst it can be fatal.’

Camilla, 72, made the issue of domestic abuse a cornerstone of her public work after visiting SafeLives, a charity working to end it, in 2016. Its chief executive, Suzanne Jacob, said the duchess’s interview with the Mail had an extraordinary impact.

She said: ‘We have had people from absolutely everywhere, particularly survivors, literally all the corners of the globe, getting in touch to say how much it meant to them and how touched they were by the fact that she keeps raising this issue.

‘They were also very moved by the candour she had in saying she knew people who have experienced the same. It speaks to women who maybe feel that they are not allowed to say this is happening to them.’