#NoSafeHaven

#NoSafeHaven advocates for safe and meaningful actions we can each take in our day-to-day lives to end the conditions which allow domestic abuse to thrive.

 

Our mission is simple: if enough of us stop turning a blind eye to the many ways domestic abusers are able to continue their harmful behaviours, change is inevitable.

 

Abuse rarely starts with violence. Rather, it starts with attitudes about power and control and the deeply held belief that some people deserve to be subservient to others.

 

Saying no to domestic abuse doesn't have to mean getting involved in other people's business, reporting serious incidents of violence to police or social services or risking our own safety to confront those we know are doing harm. Challenging an abuser's harmful behaviour could be as simple as a neutral facial expression, not laughing at a derogatory comment or joke made about someone's partner, or 'women' in general. It could be turning away from rather than towards someone showing you an explicit image of their partner that might not have been taken with that partner's consent. It's not answering the phone to that one "friend" that gives you bad vibes. 

 

As a former human rights lawyer and a victim-survivor of domestic abuse, I realised that if we all began to confront the predictors of intimate partner violence as they present themselves to us in our everyday lives it could make a huge impact over time.

 

It starts with understanding what abuse and its early predictors can look like then identifying safe ways to make it clear to abusers that abuse is never OK and that we will not tolerate it. We hope that as you engage with the resources on this website, you may change your own mindset about what domestic abuse looks like or perhaps challenge your perceptions about victims of domestic abuse. Perhaps, something you read here will lead you to recognise that a friend, colleague or loved one might be a victim. Perhaps, you may come to understand that you too are a victim. We certainly hope that you will be inspired to begin standing up to domestic abuse in small, safe and meaningful ways in your own everyday life, as together, in a hundred small ways, we can make our homes, families and communities safer for everyone.