Who are the advisory group? My name is Sharon Waugh. I am a survivor of Domestic Violence. I escaped 12 years ago and sought to rebuild my life. My ex-husband was very violent physically, emotionally and sexually. This continued after separation culminating in him stabbing me. He served two and a half years of a six and a half year prison sentence. I now work for a local Women's Aid Organisation as a refuge worker and have also worked with Women's Aid national office helping them to launch their Millennium Campaign (A Future Without Fear) and I have done a magazine article for them to try to raise awareness. I also spoke at the Women's Aid Federation Annual General Meeting in 1999. I feel very honoured to have been asked to be a member of the expert advisory group for the APPG, and will work hard with all other members to make this internet consultation a success. Nicola Harwin is National Co-coordinator of the Women's Aid Federation of England, the leading national charity working to end domestic violence with a national network of over 250 local services. With over 20 years experience of developing and providing local and national services, Nicola has also played a key role in monitoring and responding to legislation and policy affecting abused women and children. This has included giving oral evidence to the 1992 Home Affairs Select Committee Inquiry into Domestic Violence, responding to numerous government consultations, drafting amendments to new legislation, working as an expert advisor with a wide range of statutory and voluntary bodies, promoting the development of multi-agency work on domestic violence, and acting as a consultant to several major research projects into domestic violence. She also provides training on domestic violence and is the author of numerous publications: advice leaflets for survivors, training resources and handbooks for service providers, briefing papers for government and the public, and contributions to recent and forthcoming books. She has recently been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Women's National Commission, the UK Government's Advisory Body on Women. Dr Purna Sen is currently the Director of a Worldwide Programme on Non-Consensual Sex in Marriage, in which she is undertaking a global mapping survey of laws, research, policies and campaigns on sexual violence in marriage. The Programme is based at CHANGE, an organisation which has worked for twenty years on the promotion of women's human rights. She is involved in a number of women's organisations - including Southall Black Sisters and Womankind - has worked with refugees in London and worked on race equality issues in the UK. Before joining CHANGE full-time she was a lecturer at the London School of Economics, where she still conducts some lectures at the Gender Institute and in the Social Policy Department. Her doctorate was an investigation of women's resistance to domestic violence in Calcutta. Audrey Mullender is Professor of Social Work at the University of Warwick. She has produced over a hundred publications in the social work field, including ten books. Much of her research and writing has focused on domestic violence, including the views of survivors, the impact on children, and work undertaken to try and change the behaviour of perpetrators. Two of her best known books are: 'Children Living with Domestic Violence: Putting Men's Abuse of Women on the Child Care Agenda' (edited jointly with Rebecca Morley and published by Whiting and Birch in 1994) and 'Rethinking Domestic Violence' (published by Routledge in 1996).