Report reveals a rise in domestic abuse
Charity finds more victims are reaching out for help
A new police report revealing a rise in the number of domestic abuse incidents in Stirling last year is reflective of a rise in demand for support, according to a local charity.
Stirling and District Women’s Aid – which works with those who have experienced domestic abuse across all ages – has seen a surge in calls for help over the past year, with the loosening of the Covid lockdown bringing more incidents into light.
It follows a recent report from cops in Forth Valley which showed an increase in the number of incidents reported from April 1 to December 31 last year.
A total of 721 reports of domestic abuse were received by cops in Stirling over that period, compared to 645 in 2020/21.
However, the percentage of these incidents which resulted in a crime report recorded a fall year-on-year, from 41.6 per cent in 2020/21 to 38.4 per cent in 2021/22.
Beth, who works as a prevention and communication for Stirling and District Women’s Aid, said: “We’ve certainly seen an increase in demand for our services and more people reaching out for support.
“There’s been an increase in both women that we’ve worked with before coming back to us, but there has also been a rise in new women as well as children and young people.
“That increase has been across the board and we’ve had to take on an extra couple of members of staff to deal with the demand but thankfully our services have been able to continue. With things starting to calm down with Covid, more people have been able to reach out for help and so we often see a real increase.
“One of the main challenges for us during the pandemic is that a lot of people we normally work with couldn’t get help because they were in lockdown with the perpetrator of the abuse and they are able to exert that coercive control once again.”
The domestic abuse statistics for Stirling in the Police Scotland quarterly report were reflected in the wider picture across the Forth Valley area, which also registered a rise in reported incidents but a fall in the number proceeding to a full crime report.
Beth continued: “It differs from person to person. Some women want to go through the court process as part of their journey, for others it’s more traumatising to relive the experience.
“The court system slowing down through Covid also presented a challenge as the delays meant that some women felt in limbo, not knowing what the outcome of their case was going to be.
“As an organisation, a big thing for us is that perpetrators need to be held to account for their behaviour globally and a lot of our work is to talk about perpetrators and how it is their choice to engage in that behaviour.
“We’re also seeing a lot of children and young people being referred to us and we actually had a waiting list for a short while, but we managed to recruit someone to bring that down.
“As a society, we’re in a much better place in acknowledging that doemstic abuse isn’t just seen or heard by young people, but experienced by them and that it is a traumatic experience for them.”