Sexual violence charities say they are being pushed to the margins - underfunded, misunderstood, and dangerously close to collapse as Jocelyn Anderson, CEO of West Mercia Rape & Sexual Abuse Support Centre, explains.
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Last year, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing released their National Policing Statement outlining the scale of violence against women and girls (VAWG), deeming it a ‘national emergency’. They found that 3,000 crimes of violence against women and girls (VAWG) are recorded each day.

It is estimated that one in four women have been raped or sexually assaulted since the age of 16, one in six children have been sexually abused and one in 18 men have been raped or sexually assaulted since the age of 16 (Rape Crisis E&W).

The statistics are shocking, the impact of sexual violence (SV) devastating more lives than many diseases. Hardly a week goes by without another allegation of sexual harassment, abuse or rape involving celebrities or those in positions of trust. The government has pledged to "halve violence against women and girls in a decade" by using "every government tool available to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence".

Referrals are increasing as more and more survivors try to come to terms with what has happened to them, to make sense of their experience, to heal. Meanwhile, three Rape Crisis centres have closed within the last 12 months with over half expecting to cut services, make redundancies and close waiting lists in this financial year because of a lack of funding.

Fundraising in the SV sector has never been easy – we are not a popular cause. No one wants to think of children being abused, that rape is prevalent in society or that the person you work with/live with/are friends with or gave birth to, can commit these crimes. Victim blaming is rife, myths and stereotypes abound, and the sector is caught in a storm of rising referrals, a broken criminal justice system (survivors are waiting for over 5 years for a case to come to court), increasing direct costs, National Insurance employer contribution increases, staff losses and recruitment challenges, Police & Crime Commissioner (PCC) grant reductions, uncertainty around central government funding and specialist sexual violence support services remaining underfunded and increasingly lumped in with Domestic abuse services. It seems that no government department wants to take responsibility for commissioning services for survivors.

NHS England maintain that they are the A&E of SV Services, only commissioning Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs) despite these predominantly being accessed by police referral/reporting cases within a specific forensic window, meaning that very few victims are supported.

Unlike domestic abuse, local authorities, public health, and Integrated Health Boards have no obligation to commission services for SV survivors despite the raft of referrals that they send our way. Most do not even have a strategy or care pathway for SV. Not all charities are created equally; some are far more popular than others. We are, like the crimes perpetrated against survivors, a dark secret that is ignored and hidden away, that no one wants to think about, let alone address, support or adequately fund.

A recent state of the sector report (RCEW) showed that over half of all Rape Crisis centres expect to cut counselling services, one in four are losing staff because of funding uncertainty, and 27% are considering closure. I have been in the SV sector for over 20 years and cannot recall a time when the outlook has been so bleak for services and survivors alike.

We work with women, men, and children from the age of 5 years and their non-abusing family members. We work with survivors of all forms of rape, sexual violence, abuse, exploitation, and harassment. We are one of those charities that people only find when they or their family need us. It is already a postcode lottery if there is a centre in your area, and my fear is that unless there is a change, the SV sector will not be here for much longer.

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