Scottish Women's Aid at 40

The story of the organisation's work to be told

The story of women fighting domestic abuse in Scotland will be told in a new project.

To celebrate 40 years of Women's Aid an archive, website and touring exhibition is going to be set up. 

With funding from the Heritage Lottery fund they hope to record the history of Women's Aid through the voices of the women involved. 

Nel Whiting, learning and development worker for Scottish Women’s Aid, who is co-ordinating the project said: "The first Women’s Aid groups started in Glasgow and Edinburgh in 1973, providing refuge accommodation to battered wives.  

Three years later, the national Scottish Women’s Aid office opened to co-ordinate awareness-raising and put domestic abuse on the political agenda.  

At the time is was simply not considered as a serious social issue.  So much has changed since that time, including the language we use to talk about domestic abuse, and much of this is attributable to the work of Women’s Aid in highlighting the scale and seriousness
 of domestic abuse, and addressing gender inequality as cause and consequence of such violence."

Adele Patrick,of Glasgow Women’s Library, where the archive will be held, said: "The movement at local and national level is a unique and important part of Scotland’s recent heritage. Those involved over the years have, in different ways, sought to preserve and to celebrate the story, and there is pride in the origins and achievement of Women’s Aid."