To mark the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, the Faith and VAWG Coalition will be launching ‘Keeping the Faith: What Survivors From Faith Communities Want Us to Know’. A report that uncovers the unique challenges and experiences of survivors of VAWG from faith communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, through a series of interviews and questionnaires of specialists working in by and for organisations. The policy brief identifies two influential gatekeepers to accessing support and safety. One being leaders in faith communities and the other, professionals in practice and policy making.

The Faith and VAWG Coalition’s policy briefing will outline the unique ways in which life under COVID-19 has impacted survivors from faith communities who are often also (though not exclusively) from migrant, Black and minoritised communities.

Moderator:

The webinar will be moderated by Naima Khan, the Director of the Inclusive Mosque Initiative.

Speakers:

• Nicole Jacobs, Designate Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales
• Dr Ava Kanyeredzi, Lead Member & Researcher on the Black Churches Domestic Abuse Forum
• Faeeza Vaid MBE, Executive Director at Muslim Women's Network UK
• Huda Jawad, Co-founder of Faith and VAWG Coalition, Standing Together

The presentations will be followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Many survivors of faith have reported that secular specialist services and society, in general, are unable to understand their experiences of abuse, and the barriers to accessing support. Often the unique role religion and spirituality play in their lives and how this manifests in their communities, experiences of abuse and healing is little if understood at all.

Whilst the VAWG ending organisations have proactively responded to the escalating and rapidly changing needs of women and some strategic gains have been had in influencing policy response to the pandemic, the voices and needs of women from faith backgrounds have been conspicuously absent. This is particularly concerning given the disproportionate impact the pandemic continues to have on migrant, Black and minoritised women. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the extent to which survivors from faith communities and their needs are totally absent from policy responses whether at governmental level, or the practice responses of the police, NHS and women led services.

The Faith & VAWG Coalition is a partnership of organisations led by the Faith and Communities Programme at Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse. It seeks to build bridges between members of Faith Communities or Faith-centric organisations, DVA specialists and organisations within the VAWG-sector. The Faith and VAWG Coalition was created as an anti-oppression, survivor centred and strategic space where VAWG specialists and professionals working with faith and cultural contexts can come together.

SPEAKER BIOS

Nicole Jacobs is the Designate Domestic Abuse Commissioner. Since her appointment to the role in September 2019, Nicole has begun energetically putting her 20 plus years of experience in domestic abuse policy and intervention to work, driving improvements to transform the response to domestic abuse in England and Wales. She is committed to championing victims and survivors of all ages, status, and backgrounds, and to shining a light on practises that fail them.

Dr Ava Kanyeredzi is a Senior Lecturer on the Forensic, Clinical and Community Psychology courses at the University of East London. Her research interests include intersectional feminist perspectives on experiences of the body, violence and abuse, gender, race, culture, faith, mental distress, and forensic psychiatric facilities using qualitative, visual/creative methods. Her current project looks at how faith communities within Black British Pentecostal churches respond to reports of domestic abuse. Ava was invited to join this project after carrying out research with African and Caribbean heritage women with experience of violence/abuse all of whom shared their faith religion/spirituality as important in their journeys towards safety/recovery. Ava is also a trustee of the End Violence Against Women Coalition.

Faeeza Vaid MBE has an academic background in Law and Religious Studies, and extensive understanding of the lived experiences of Muslim women in the UK. Faeeza has combined her knowledge, skills, confidence and passion for justice, in order to be a force of social change through research, advocacy, campaigning and policy development in the UK. Faeeza's Masters dissertation done at the University of Warwick was entitled: 'Notions of Scholarly Religious Knowledge Authorities in Muslim Societies and Muslim Women's Movements as Challenges to the Current Status Quo.' Faeeza became Executive Director of MWNUK in September 2011 and has proved herself as a standout leader with excellent operational and strategic management skills. Her role has involved a myriad of project and program development, training and facilitation, and as a naturally talented public speaker, promoting issues through speaking at events and in the media. In the 2019 Queen's New Year's Honours Faeeza was awarded an MBE for Services to Women's Rights.

Huda Jawad was born in Baghdad and left Iraq at the age of two. She travelled the Middle East throughout her childhood eventually arriving as a political refugee and settling in the UK in 1988. Huda has held various positions in local government, national and international NGOs and charities tackling a range of issues including social exclusion, justice, equality. In 2011, she was the coordinator for a research project that tracked the lives of 100 women who had left their abusive partners, for three years. She is a member of Musawah, the global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, and is also a 2017 Clore Social Fellow and Co-Chair of End Violence Against Women Coalition, working to end violence against women and girls in all its forms in the UK. She is the Co-founder of the Faith and VAWG Coalition.