Dear Prime Minister,
On behalf of Women’s Aid and our supporters, we welcome your government’s decision to repeal the legal presumption of contact in the family courts — a vital step towards protecting children and survivors of domestic abuse. Women’s Aid has campaigned for this change for nearly a decade. To make this reform meaningful, we urge you to introduce legislation to enact the repeal and commit to:
- Mandatory domestic abuse training for all family court professionals
- Regulation of court-appointed experts
- Full implementation of the Ministry of Justice’s Harm Panel Report (2019)
Since 2004, 67 children have been killed during unsafe contact arrangements. This includes Jack and Paul, the sons of our Survivor Ambassador Claire Throssell MBE. We must act now to ensure no more lives are lost.
We ask for your leadership to make family courts safe and to put children’s safety first.
Yours sincerely,
Farah Nazeer
Chief Executive, Women’s Aid