"I never reported it. I thought it was normal for a very long time and even though I knew some things were off, I would always justify it."

For Rachel (whose name has been changed for reasons of safety), the abuse started when she was only 13 and it continued for seven years.

She was 18 when she confided in someone for the first time – her head of year at school. It was a relief finally to get it off her chest, but her situation worsened that summer. By this time, her youth worker and the police felt they could no longer protect her where she was so tried to convince her to move out of the city.

She did not.

When pressed to share her experience, she said: "I don't think I want to go into too much detail but it was mainly domestic abuse, trafficking.

"My friendship group was a part of it as well. It felt normal because my friends were also going through it."

For her, there were no quiet or safer times and there were no particular triggers for her abuser.

Rachel eventually moved cities just before Christmas a couple of years ago. She came to Birmingham Crisis Centre, which offers refuge to female victims of domestic violence.

'Things were not right'

After being at the center for a couple of months, she recognized what she had endured was anything but normal.

"I think I watched a movie and it was about trafficking and that's when I realized that things were not right," recalls the now 21-year-old.

She stayed at the refuge for a year and being there really helped boost her confidence. 

"I just didn't know who I was and where I fitted in. And I let people dictate things for me and I didn't really know how to make my own decisions," she says.

She has been on a journey of self-discovery and self-preservation and has managed to turn things around for herself. Now a university student, she is working with children and young people and families, something she has always aspired to do.

Birmingham Crisis Centre was established in 1988 to provide a safe haven for female victims of domestic abuse.

It started in a house and is now a purpose-built compound of 24 self-contained units, the largest of which can accommodate a mother and five children while a couple of smaller units are for a single person occupancy.

"When the women come into [the] refuge, they come in with a multitude of issues, in addition to fleeing domestic abuse. So they could have trouble with housing, credit or debit cards and debts. They could be needing to go into counseling, all sorts of things," explains Melisha Fuller, the center's deputy manager.

"We have a 24-hour helpline. The women that we actually hands-on deal with are the women who are fleeing domestic violence," she adds. "Our phone lines are very busy, however during the pandemic it's been twice as busy."

'It is really difficult'

The center cannot house everyone who knocks on their door and must follow the "safety-first" rule. So, if the center's location is not deemed safe for a woman, they help her find refuge elsewhere. Exceptions are made if someone is considered to be in imminent danger and needs to be safe for the night, it's a decision made on a case-by-case basis.

For this, the center's staff work closely with the authorities but it is not always plain sailing.

"There are individuals in the police force, social services, mental health teams, who understand domestic violence but on the whole it is really difficult," says Fuller.

She is keen on breaking down the silos, sharing their expertise and training with the authorities to develop a common understanding of the challenge they are all confronted with.

"They will leave it to the last minute, almost until that woman is being physically hurt and even then there is a slowness in their response," she points out. "It's frustrating and disheartening. It causes the women not to trust them, whether it be the social services, or the police.

"It makes our jobs 10 times harder because we, as the refuge, don't have the level of authority and power that those organizations do."

Each year, nearly 2 million people in the UK suffer some form of domestic abuse. Of those, 1.3 million victims are female and 600,000 are male. Not everyone grasps the extent of distress and harm that victims have to endure living in an abusive environment.

With an increase in calls to helplines and the number of women seeking refuge globally, it is well documented that the pandemic has made it more difficult for victims of domestic violence. The United Nations has called it a "shadow pandemic."

In mid January the UK government launched a domestic abuse Ask for ANI codeword scheme, in collaboration with independent pharmacies and the pharmacy chain Boots.

It allows those at risk or suffering from abuse to discreetly signal that they need help and access support. By asking for ANI, a trained pharmacy worker will offer a private space where they can understand if the victim needs to speak to the police or access support services such as a domestic abuse helpline.

The idea is that pharmacies can provide a safe space for victims to sound an alarm if they are isolated at home with their abuser and unable to get help in another way, although there are concerns about how effective it is. Women's Aid, a domestic abuse charity, has expressed concern about it not being accessible to all marginalized groups.

"We know that migrant women will continue to fear reporting abuse and seeking help because of the data-sharing arrangements between the Home Office and health services," said the charity.

Judged, isolated or silenced

But when authorities fail, perhaps the wider society can step in and help.

Fuller says the abusers not only make it difficult for anyone to spot the signs but also manipulate the victims psychologically so they question their lived experience, while the perpetrators carry on subjecting them to abuse unchallenged.

She laments the fact that we live in a society where we do not intervene and people turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the abuse that may be going on next door.

But if they did intervene, would it help or hurt?

When victims decide to share their experience, they confide in people they know and trust, including family, friends, or people within their community.

However, people seldom have the understanding or the right language to help someone when they confide in them. Women's Aid says survivors can feel judged, isolated or silenced by the people around them. 

This resonates with Rachel.

"I feared what other people would say and the backlash or the judgment and sometimes people try so hard to not give you a reaction or conceal that they're shocked by anything, that you can feel it and then it makes you close up even more," she says.

"I think what really makes me not want to open up to people is them questioning, how did you get into all of that at such a young age?"

Fuller is proud of Rachel's progress.

"I don't think she gives herself enough credit for how far she's come since coming to us. She was a proper little wallflower, little bud of quietness, gave us many a heart attack and a headache. But she stayed and she accepted the challenges and the tough times and the tough talking to," she says.

Rachel may not be prepared to share her story yet but Fuller believes when the time comes, "her voice will be very loud and her story will be very powerful. And I hope that I have breath in my body to see it happen, because she will have an impact and she will make a change."

'Children carry a lot of it'

On average, high-risk victims live with domestic abuse for 2.3 years and medium-risk victims for three years before getting help.

To tackle the issue, Women's Aid has launched its "Change That Lasts Ask Me" scheme, in partnership with local communities.

It allows people to become community ambassadors, equipping them with an understanding of domestic abuse and training on how to respond to survivors. This will enable the community to play an active role in ending domestic abuse.

Fuller believes schools can play a key role, too. Teachers must be trained to look out for signs in children, who may otherwise have been labeled with a behavioral disorder, but in fact are indicating trouble at home. They can then either offer the support that is needed or flag it to the authorities.

"If there's something going on at home, then that child has a voice, because women go through it but the children carry a lot of it and I think those little voices could be heard," says the charity worker.

Scientists who have researched the issue say children are like sponges and absorb everything, this starts when they are in the womb. In an abusive relationship, being exposed to the arguments and the mother's emotional upheaval can have a bearing on the unborn child's development.

According to Safe Lives UK, 130,000 children live in households where there is high-risk domestic abuse and a quarter of these children are under the age of three. On average, high-risk abuse has been going on for 2.6 years, so these children have been living with abuse for most of their life.

'You will see it in a woman's eyes'

Domestic abuse is not always visible and it takes on various forms – emotional, psychological, financial, coercive control and, of course, physical abuse.

There may not be a scar to heal, or a bone that needs repairing, as it may all be emotional and mental.

"There are some levels of abuse that you cannot see on the body but you will see it in a woman's eyes. You will see that their soul is destroyed, that they are broken, that they are tired. You will hear it in their voice. You will hear it in their story," says Fuller.

Abusers destroy their victim's self worth.

"They crush you, not because they're physical, they may not break your bones but they crush your spirit. They crush everything that they think you are. You become nothing, and if the perpetrator has dragged you down, you don't know [it to be] any different," she adds.

Difficult decisions

Some women stay in abusive relationships for years, while others leave after experiencing just one episode of abuse – their reasons for staying or leaving vary.

The decision is never simple – riddled with doubt, compounded by paralyzing fear, with factors beyond the victim's control. A mother with three or four children will not find it easy to leave her home for a refuge, weighing up the impact of her decision on her children. On the other hand, a single woman may find herself so isolated that leaving may not even seem like a real choice. And then there are some who leave, only to then return to live with their abuser, hoping and believing that they will change.

"There are those who have been battered and bruised and come in with their heads bandaged, with their arms broken, with their stab wounds fresh, so everybody varies," says Fuller.

"Everyone's 'why' is different, everybody's reason for staying or leaving, everybody's breaking point is different. There's not a certain amount of hits or a number of years or months that you will stay for before thinking of why."

She argues that if society is to tackle the issue of domestic violence, harmful attitudes and persistent misconceptions about it must be challenged and changed. People need to be educated that it is not limited to just poorer communities. People from affluent areas and those in positions of power are just as likely to be abusers.

"Area codes, where you live – rural, inner city – makes no difference, just that people will hear about it and see it differently when you're probably from a poorer background," she says.

Cover Image: Aleksander Kalka/Getty Images