Jewish Women’s Aid sees surge in calls to domestic abuse helpline

JEWISH women stay in abusive relationships two years longer than the national average owing to a fear of “bringing shame” on their families, a charity has warned.

Jewish Women’s Aid (JWA) revealed that the organisation witnessed a 62 per cent spike in calls to its domestic violence helpline during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The charity supported 465 Jewish women and girls through domestic abuse and sexual violence support services from April 2020 to March this year, with the time spent directly supporting clients increasing by 37 per cent.

Officials said lockdown measures had been “used as an opportunity by perpetrators to abuse women”, as calls to its helpline rose to 285, an increase of 62 per cent.

Naomi Dickson, chief executive of JWA and a trustee of Women’s Aid, said women worry about “bringing shame” on their families, so it takes them longer to reach out for help.

“Sometimes they’ll come to us and say, my husband is well known in the community, he gives a lot of money to charity or he got a community position, nobody’s going to believe me. There is a real concern of not being believed,” she said.

Nationally, one in four women will be affected by domestic abuse, and there is no evidence to suggest the issue is more prevalent in Jewish communities.

Calls and contacts logged by the National Domestic Abuse

Helpline increased by 34 per cent to 114,986 between April and December 2020, compared with the same period in 2019.

Research by JWA found Jewish women take two years longer to report domestic abuse compared with the national average, at 11.5 years to 9.5 years.