Yoni on Charity

Today women are 50 times more likely to be injured by their partner than in a house fire and twice as likely to die at the hands of their partner than from smoke and gas inhalation. On average one women every three days is killed by a man in the UK, with the police receiving a call about domestic violence every 30 seconds. Conversely, due to things like improved building materials and standards,  fatalities due to fire have steadily declined from 967 in 1985 to 321 in 2022. Meaning that central government spend on protecting society is now disproportionately allocated to the risk in todays society.

The impact of domestic violence goes beyond the immediate victims: The driving factor for temporary accommodation provided by local councils and Housing Associations is from women and children fleeing domestic abuse. So domestic violence also has a direct, negative and large impact on the housing crisis in this country, one simply can't be solved without addressing the other.

This isn’t an argument to spend less on the fire and rescue service, it is more that it is regretful that the government hasn’t taken the same action they did in 1947 when they recognised that managing the threat of fire to public safety, through the police and local authorities, wasn’t sufficient and was putting too much of a burden on these resources (sound familiar?). So they passed the Fire and Rescue Service Act,  which set up the fully funded, specialist national fire and rescue service we know today.

It begs the questions: how many women have to die before the government decides to address this risk differently and establish a dedicated national infrastructure? How much longer do poorly funded charities, police and councils have to bear the burden of trying to resource the crisis that is domestic violence? Not to mention that policemen are not universally trusted by women in the country anymore to protect them.

Refuge is national charity with 53 refuges along with a National Domestic Abuse Helpline, Community-based Outreach and Advocacy service and a Technology-Facilitated and Economic Empowering service. 

Yoni has decided to donate £1 from each Yoni Keyring sold via this website to Refuge to help create a better future for all of society.