Five years on from the Domestic Abuse Act, little has changed for survivors

Five years after the Domestic Abuse Act became law, too many survivors are still not getting the protection and support they were promised.

The law, introduced in April 2021, was seen as a major step forward. It created a definition of domestic abuse, recognised children as victims in their own right, and gave local authorities new responsibilities to support those affected.

But in reality, little has changed for victims and survivors of domestic abuse, and progress in law has not translated into consistent safety and support in practice.

The Domestic Abuse Act was a vital step forward, but legislation alone doesn't protect people. We need to see it working in practice consistently, safely, and for every survivor, no matter where they live or who they are.

That means proper funding for specialist services, clear guidance for local areas, and a renewed commitment from government to turn ambition into action. Without this, the Act risks being a promise not fully kept.

Jo Silver, Director of Quality and Innovation, SafeLives

A postcode lottery of support

Right now, the help a survivor gets can still depend too heavily on where they live. One family may find specialist support quickly, while another is left navigating fear, risk and trauma largely alone.

Too many survivors are still facing a system where support is patchy, inconsistent and hard to access. Safety should not depend on your postcode.

A survivor should not have to be lucky to get the right help. But too often, access to support still depends on local services, local funding and local priorities, rather than need.

SafeLives sees that community-based services, including specialist and by and for organisations, are often missing from local needs assessments. Yet these services are a critical part of how survivors access help.

The legislation does not clearly set out how needs assessments should be carried out, and this has led to significant variation across the country. The impact is clear. Survivors are facing a postcode lottery in the support available to them, particularly when it comes to community-based provision, which is too often overlooked in local planning.

There is a clear opportunity to strengthen this approach. National guidance on needs assessments would support greater consistency and clarity. This should include embedding survivor voice, involving community-based services, strengthening data collection, and setting out how progress against strategies is monitored and reviewed.

Without these changes, there is a risk that strategies will continue to be developed without fully reflecting local need or delivering the support that survivors require.

A definition that misses the reality of abuse today

The statutory definition still fails to fully reflect modern experiences of abuse. Technological abuse is not explicitly included, and the exclusion of under-16s leaves many young people without appropriate protection.

Abuse does not only happen behind closed doors. It can happen through phones, apps, social media and location tracking, with perpetrators finding new ways to monitor, threaten and control.

For many survivors, abuse now follows them everywhere. It can be in their pocket, on their screen, in their messages and in the constant fear of being watched or contacted.

Currently, the definition of domestic abuse in the Act does not include the specific existence of technological abuse, and our work with survivors and research has demonstrated the prevalence of online abuse, particularly in young people’s relationships.

The legislation also does not protect victims who do not know their perpetrators ‘in person’. In the changing and developing online world, not meeting one another ‘in person’ does not mean that a perpetrator and victim do not have an intimate relationship, and that abusive behaviours are not present.

Jo Silver, Director of Quality and Innovation, SafeLives

Children recognised, but not supported

While the Act formally recognised children as victims, SafeLives says little has changed in practice, with agencies still responding much as they did in 2021. Babies, children and young people are still too often overlooked, rarely recognised as victims and still not getting the support they need.

There is no clear duty to provide recovery support, and vital programmes have not been sustained. Without intervention, the long-term impact on children remains unaddressed.

Being recognised in law should have been a turning point. But for many children, the reality is that they are still expected to live with the effects of abuse without consistent support to feel safe, heard and well again.

A child can be living with the daily impact of domestic abuse at home, in school and in their own mental health, yet still not be offered the help they need to recover.

Children’s needs are not the same in every family or community. Through its Children Affected by Domestic Abuse programme in Bolton and Sheffield, SafeLives has worked with specialist services supporting children and families from minoritised communities, helping to shape support around their real experiences and the barriers they face.

This includes the impact of racism, immigration status, disability and poverty alongside abuse. The programme shows how important it is to provide culturally competent, trauma-informed support, and what can be achieved when services are designed with families, not just for them. But programmes like this now face an uncertain future, with no clear commitment to long-term funding.

Ursula, SafeLives Pioneer and lived experience advocate recently gave evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Domestic Abuse Act. Ursula highlighted the complexity of the system, the loss of control many experience, and the lasting trauma it can often cause. Ursula also drew urgent attention to child victims of domestic abuse.

Although children are recognised as victims in law under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, too many are still unheard and unseen, with their safety and wellbeing not placed at the centre of decisions made about them.

Ursula, SafeLives Pioneer

Charities say the Government’s recent Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy falls short, offering only to explore external funding rather than guarantee support for child victims of domestic abuse.

Five years on from the Domestic Abuse Act, we have seen important progress. But for babies and children, the reality remains deeply concerning.

They are still not consistently or effectively recognised or supported as co-victims of domestic abuse, despite its profound and lifelong impact, while a postcode lottery continues to shape families’ access to support. In the family courts, children’s lived experiences are too often overlooked, and migrant parents and their children still face significant barriers to safety and protection.

Babies, among the most vulnerable, remain without a voice in the system, their needs too often invisible despite the increased risk of domestic abuse in the perinatal period. This is compounded by a chronic lack of sustainable funding for specialist, trauma-informed services.

To break cycles of abuse, we need far more joined-up action across government to ensure every child is seen, heard, and protected from the earliest possible moment.

Lauren Seager-Smith, CEO, For Baby’s Sake

Courts, policing and protection: still falling short

For a survivor already living with trauma, the burden of having to ask for basic protections in court can feel overwhelming. Support that exists on paper can still be difficult to access in practice.

The Act stopped abusers from directly cross-examining their victims in court, a move charities say has made a real difference, but problems remain with how this works in practice.

The difference between protection promised and protection delivered can be stark. Survivors can still find themselves navigating systems that feel complex, inconsistent and retraumatising.

Although victims are automatically eligible for special measures in court, barriers remain in accessing them, and the onus is still on the victim to find and apply for these. An opt-out system would be more appropriate, says SafeLives.

Meanwhile, the Act’s provisions on offences such as non-fatal strangulation do not go far enough in recognising the high-risk nature of these behaviours within patterns of coercive control.

Migrant survivors still locked out of safety

Migrant survivors continue to face many of the same barriers that existed when the Act was first introduced, and in some cases, those challenges are deepening in an increasingly hostile climate.

Victims are still unable to access the same financial support or legal protections as others. The “no recourse to public funds” rule continues to block access to vital benefits and safe housing, even when someone is trying to escape abuse.

At the same time, a rise in anti-migrant rhetoric and racist hostility is making it even harder for survivors to seek help. Fear of immigration enforcement, combined with growing community tensions and hostile public narratives, is deterring victims from coming forward or, in some cases, pushing them back into unsafe situations because they feel they have nowhere else to turn.

There are also ongoing concerns about how victims’ data is shared. While the Domestic Abuse Act included some steps to improve this, it did not go far enough. A clear firewall between support services and immigration enforcement is essential. Without it, many survivors remain too afraid to access help for fear it could impact their immigration status.

Promises to introduce stronger safeguards on information-sharing have yet to be delivered, leaving both survivors and frontline services in continued uncertainty.

Stronger protections are urgently needed to ensure migrant survivors can access support safely, without fear, and without being blocked from the very services designed to protect them.

A survivor should never have to choose between staying with an abuser and risking destitution, detention or immigration enforcement. But that is still the reality many migrant victims face.

Five years on, these gaps are not just policy failures. They shape whether survivors are believed, whether children get help, whether families can access safety, and whether people feel able to turn to the system at all.

Charities are calling for

Clear national guidance and accountability for local authority delivery

Sustainable funding for specialist and community-based services

An opt-out system for special measures in court

A stronger, future-proofed definition of domestic abuse

Dedicated support for children as victims in their own right

Equal protection and access to support for migrant survivors