Queen Camilla attended the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG) Summit in Wiltshire today, where she praised the survivors of domestic abuse for sharing their stories
The Queen told survivors of domestic abuse they are the ‘real heroes’ in the campaign to end violence against women.
Camilla spoke out at the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG) Summit at Marlborough College in Wiltshire today. There she heard speeches by MP Jess Phillips and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales, Dame Nicole Jacobs, about plans to halve violence against women and girls across the country.
She also met with former Love Island star Zara McDermott, who has become a campaigner in the field after becoming the victim of intimate image abuse, and who also spoke at the summit.
Camilla told those gathered that her determination to do whatever she could to help those affected was inspired by a visit to the charity Safe Lives, where she heard the best friend of Jo Simpson, killed by her abusive estranged husband, speak in harrowing detail about the case.
She said of Hetti Barkworth Nanton CBE, now chair of the board at the charity Refuge: “It was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. As her best friend, she got up with such dignity and told this horrific story. She is one of the real heroes of this cause.”
She also praised Jo’s mother, Diana Parkes, who also spoke at the event, saying: “She is a fantastic lady. She’s of a certain age; she lost her beloved daughter, and a lot of people would have hidden away and shut the door and buried themselves forever.
“But she got up and got out there, and she spoke to people. I have such admiration for her. She survived the ordeal, and she survived it by helping others and stopping others from suffering the same fate.”
The Queen added: “I want to say the real heroes are the survivors. The survivors who come forward and tell us all their stories. It’s terrifying to get up onto a platform and talk about something so horrific, the things that have happened to them, to stand in front of an audience and talk. I just want to applaud them.
“Talking is what we have to do. Domestic abuse was a taboo subject and nobody talked about it. It was hush hush. Now people are getting up and talking about it. We might be able to put an end to it.”
Speaking afterwards, Zara, who is also the girlfriend of One Direction star Louis Tomlinson, said: ‘I think it is my responsibility to [use what happened to her] in a positive way.
Especially in my world, the world of social media and the digital space, we have so much power to connected with people, speak to them directly. I believe that every single person who has a platform has a responsibility to be positive with it.
“ Technology has brought a whole new dimension to the issue. Women are struggling to identify whether they are being abused or not. My speech today is called the ‘abuse in our pocket’.
“Phones bring a new raft of problems, particularly where the lines between the physical and the online world blur. The face of abuse is changing. But we need to treat them the same. We need to catch up, essentially.
“Women are told ‘well just delete it, block them’. But why should we have to make ourselves so much smaller. It is putting pressure on the victim, not the perpetrator.”
While Lady Lansdowne, Camilla’s close friend who helped to organise the summit, said: “There are millions of women who do not feel safe.
There are still victims who struggle to be heard, believed, and are then let down. There are too many times when the system does not join up around the person who needs it most, and then they are failed. That’s why collaboration matters so much.”
She added: ‘If we know there is a gap, we should ask what we can do about it and if organisations need to work differently together. This is an ambitious goal. But looking around this room today, I feel it’s a challenge we can meet.”
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