Welcome to the Parliamentary Domestic Violence Internet Consultation.

Message from the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Domestic Violence Group

Welcome to this first ever online consultation in which you and other survivors of domestic violence can tell MPs about your experiences and concerns directly through the internet.

We shall be following what you have to say very carefully and some MPs from the All Party Parliamentary Group plan to join in the discussion. To see who we are, click on the Who's Listening button. We want to hear from you so that we can take forward parliamentary work on domestic violence. Tessa Jowell one of the Ministers for women will launch the resulting report and use your words to help inform the government's strategy on tackling domestic violence.

In 1999 the government launched a report Living Without Fear - the government's integrated approach to tackling violence against women. This sets out the first ever government strategy for tackling domestic violence. In October 1998 Women's Aid also launched Families without Fear, which sets out their recommendations for action around domestic violence. We would be interested to hear what you think about these reports. To read copies of the report click on Information Exchange and click on Links at the top of the page.

This is your forum in which you can tell us what we, as policy-makers, need to know. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,
Margaret Moran MP

If you are a woman experiencing domestic violence and need help contact the Women's Aid Domestic Violence Helpline on: 08457 023 468 or go to the Women's Aid Website for information on your nearest local refuge and for information about your legal rights to protection written in 10 different languages.
Women who have lived with domestic violence, together with women practitioners and MPs are taking part in a private consultation aimed at gathering information about women's experience of domestic violence.

In this section you can also read background information about domestic violence legislation and social policy and see other relevant websites.

Click here if you have a Username and Password. You will be able to read the discussion but no further contributions can be made. We will include your discussions in the resulting report for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Domestic Violence and Minster for Women Tessa Jowell.
Click here for information on the All Party Parliamentary Group on Domestic Violence.

Our confidentiality policy

Anything written in the womenspeak section will be seen by other members of Womenspeak and may form part of the report, which will be submitted to the APPGDV and the Minister for Women, Tessa Jowell. It is not our intention to trace anything that you say back to you. It is important that you do not use names, your own name or names of other people, in your written contributions. By this we mean do not name an abuser or a professional such as Doctor, Solicitor or Advice Worker, or the specific name of an agency, as we are legally bound to remove any contributions that include names. This will mean that we will be unable to use your contribution for the purpose of this consultation. Please use your username that has been issued to you to identify your self and refer to other peoples contributions.

If you are a woman experiencing domestic violence and need help contact the Women's Aid Domestic Violence Helpline on 08457 023 468 or go to the Women's Aid Website - www.womensaid.org.uk - for information on your nearest local refuge and for information about your legal rights to protection written in 10 different languages.

Women's Aid and The Hansard Society have been working in partnership with an advisory group to support the All Party Parliamentary Group on Domestic Violence with this consultation. We are grateful for funding provided by UNISON and KPMG.

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