Shelter Scotland has reported a sharp rise in the number of visits to its website from women looking for help and advice on domestic abuse following its recent Facebook advertising campaign.
The campaign was launched to coincide with the weekend’s Old Firm football match which Strathclyde Police says is often the catalyst for a spike in reported incidents of domestic abuse. The charity saw a 600% increase in visits around the match compared with previous weekends when the same adverts had been running.
Alison Watson, Head of Services at Shelter Scotland, said: “These figures show that hundreds, perhaps thousands of people across Scotland, mainly women, went online last weekend to find advice and help on issues related to domestic abuse. And they weren’t just browsing. The average length of visit to our advice pages increased to several minutes.”
“With a 600% rise in visits to our domestic abuse advice pages, we think that reported cases may only be the tip of the ice-berg and that there could be hundreds more unreported cases of people living in fear of or suffering abuse.”
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Old Firm match triggers demand for domestic violence advice
Lottery funding to help victims become survivors
Over £6.5 million of Lottery money is to be spent on supporting families living with domestic abuse across Scotland.
The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery Good Cause distributors, has announced a package of funding worth £6,494,961 to 18 projects across Scotland. This funding means there will be greater access to proven support services for women and families who have lived through domestic abuse.
There are currently 50,000 recorded incidents of domestic abuse in Scotland each year and Scottish Women’s Aid believes that one in five women will experience domestic abuse at some point in their lives.
Heather Coady, Children’s Policy Manager at Scottish Women’s Aid (SWA) said: “Scottish Women’s Aid welcomes the news that the Big Lottery Fund has funded domestic abuse projects across Scotland to the tune of £6.5 million. This is a significant injection of cash towards an area of work that supports vulnerable women, children and young people living with the trauma of domestic abuse and recognition that this is an area desperately in need of funding.”
SWA have also been awarded £367,109 to develop a nationwide CEDAR Children Experiencing Domestic Abuse Recovery project to work with families and women to help them move on from the emotional and social difficulties experienced as a consequence of domestic abuse.