8th March — International Women's Day #IWD2026 #stillnotsafe #girlsjustwannabesafe

🔚 At the end of #16Days, it’s clear: Scotland’s child contact system is putting women and children in danger. With over 900 📞 calls to our helpline this year alone, we hear about how the current system exhausts survivors emotionally and financially, puts children through traumatic experiences, and allows abusers to manipulate the legal system ⚖️ to keep control. ⚠️ Reform is long overdue. At Scottish Women’s Aid, we are committed to advocating for change across the legal, government, and support systems to end this cycle of harm. Women and children deserve safety, justice, and freedom from control. 👀 Watch this space. More coming on #ChildContactReform #StillNotSafe #16Days #EndDomesticAbuse #MakeThemSafe

🔸 As we near the end of #16Days, we reflect on a harsh truth: mothers and children who have separated themselves from their abuser are #StillNotSafe. Through child contact proceedings, abusers can continue to control, threaten, and harm families 💔, while Scotland’s courts and Children’s Hearing System too often enable this abuse ⚖️. The gap between criminal and civil courts, poor risk reflection in social work and police reports, and a bias towards contact leave survivors vulnerable, even as research shows the harm this causes. Scotland can, and must, do better. It's time to reform our systems, protect children, and truly prioritise the safety of survivors. #StillNotSafe #16Days #ReformChildContact #ProtectSurvivors #MakeThemSafe

🔴 Still Not Safe: Child contact proceedings in Scotland are failing to uphold children’s rights and safety. Scottish law, under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), mandates that meeting the child’s needs is the paramount consideration. Yet current child contact decisions are still exposing children to danger, trauma, and continued abuse. We need a system that truly prioritises the safety and well-being of children over harmful assumptions about contact. Scotland must make urgent reforms to protect families and ensure no child is forced into unsafe situations. #StillNotSafe #16Days #ChildContactReform #ProtectChildren #ChildrensRights

📣“I didn’t feel like I got any support from the courts in this matter.” 📣 Today, a member of our Survivor Reference Group shares her experiences of child contact systems and how she and her daughter were not heard in the courts. #DomesticAbuseReform #StillNotSafe #16Days

📣"Children don't lie about being afraid of a parent. Each time a child isn't heard by the justice system we are sending them back to an abusive father who knows they complained about them. This is an added layer of cruelty and puts them in more danger." 📣 Today in our #StillNotSafe campaign, a member of our Survivor Reference Group reflects on where Scotland is failing to protect child survivors of #DomesticAbuse. Dangerous contact decisions are routinely made that perpetuate abuse and violate women's and children's rights. When child contact proceedings start, child protection ends. We can do better. #16Days #DomesticAbuseReform

⚠️Child Contact Decisions Putting Families at Risk: What’s the reality of Child Contact in Scotland?⚠️ In Scotland, the child contact system is failing to protect survivors of domestic abuse. Calls to our helpline reveal an alarming reality: 🔴Abusers use child contact proceedings as a weapon, draining survivors emotionally and financially. 🔴Abuse continues during contact handovers, creating traumatic and dangerous moments for families. 🔴Abusers make false allegations to damage the court’s view of the non-abusive parent, manipulating the system to continue exerting control. These issues are endemic across Scotland’s child contact system. It’s time for urgent reform to protect mothers and children from being trapped in cycles of trauma and control. Families deserve safety, stability, and real freedom. #StillNotSafe #16Days #ProtectSurvivors #ChildContactReform

⚠️ The reality for child contact in Scotland: Misogyny in the Scottish court system ⚠️ Child contact in Scotland is in crisis. Survivors and support services report that courts too often side with abusers, ignoring the risks posed. This harms families and prolongs trauma. We demand reform, protection, and safety. #StillNotSafe #16Days #ProtectSurvivors

📣"In my experience, my child wasn't listened to. She was told her Father still had the right to see her."📣 In this video a member of our Survivor Reference group shares the impact that not being listened to in child contact processes had on her daughter. All across Scotland, every day, we hear about children being ignored and their views not being given due weight in contact processes. The impacts of being forced to have contact with a parent who has been abusive are devastating and long-lasting. We can and must change this. #StillNotSafe #16Days #ChildSafetyFirst #DomesticAbuse

📞In the region of 900 calls.📞That’s how many times survivors reached out to our Domestic Abuse Helpline over the last year about child contact. 👩‍👧 Child contact is a major, widespread issue for women and children experiencing domestic abuse in Scotland. 🛡️Women and children deserve to be heard and protected—not forced into danger through harmful contact decisions. #StillNotSafe #16Days #ChildProtectionNow

🚨 Child Protection Stops When Child Contact Starts. 🚨 Too often, child contact proceedings in Scotland overlook the risks posed to mothers and children who have separated themselves from their abuser. Decisions are being made in courts and Children’s Hearings that put women and children in harm’s way. Why? ⚖️ There’s a gap between criminal and civil courts, leaving domestic abuse survivors vulnerable. 📝 Social work and police reports often fail to accurately reflect the trauma and risks that abuse brings, overlooking what should be crucial protections. 🌍There’s a bias towards granting child contact to both parents, even when it goes against research and human rights standards under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This system is dangerous for survivors of domestic abuse, forcing them into ongoing trauma instead of ensuring safety and support. Scotland must do better. It’s time to reform the approach to child contact to prioritise the safety and rights of women and children. #StillNotSafe #16Days #ChildSafetyFirst #DomesticAbuseReform What do you think? 💜

‘’We have a system that seems to presume that contact with an abusive father is going to deliver positive outcomes for children, despite libraries of international evidence that say it does not.’’ 📺Our CEO Dr Marsha Scott shares her thoughts on how child contact systems in Scotland are failing to protect child and women survivors of #DomesticAbuse. #StillNotSafe #16Days

🔸 “Still not safe.” 🔸 Separation doesn’t always mean safety. Many mothers and their children still face coercion, danger and control as a result of child contact proceedings in Scotland. Scottish courts must do more to protect families from abuse that continues through legal channels. #StillNotSafe #16Days

Please listen to this account. #StillNotSafe

📢"It's a lonely, never-ending nightmare."📢 Listen to a member of our Survivor Reference Group share her thoughts on how child contact systems in Scotland are failing to protect child and women survivors of #DomesticAbuse. This #16Days during our #StillNotSafe campaign we're raising awareness of these failings and calling for bold, lasting change.

Libraries of evidence, decades of case studies, and we still have a civil and criminal justice system that enables abusers to control, threaten, and abuse children and their mothers through contact and visitation hearings. Separation ≠ safety. #StillNotSafe

#16DaysOfActivism2024 #StillNotSafe

Today is the first day of #16Days and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. To mark this day we are launching our #StillNotSafe child contact campaign. During #16 days and beyond we will be pushing for reform of the systems that deliver damaging child contact decisions and make women and children unsafe and re-traumatised. We will advocate for change, implementation and reform across Government, justice and legal systems, social work, and support services. These decisions result in abuse against women and children after they are supposedly free of their abuser. They are not. Over #16Days we’ll share the experiences of those who have been through the system. It’s time for reform. #StillNotSafe #16Days

Indeed. Abusers repeatedly target mothers in civil courts and Children’s Hearings in Scotland, in custody and visitation actions. Abusers’ motives? Avoiding child maintenance; exploiting her biggest fear “I will take the children away”; control, control, control. #StillNotSafe

Thousands of errors happen every day without leading to harm. It can't be errors alone. The misperceptions about patient safety by people who know nothing at all about it and aren't interested in learning about it is taking decades to end. #stillnotsafe