Secondary traumatisation: An investigation into how domestic abuse victims are treated

In this episode, Helena Kondak is joined by Professor Shazia Choudhry (University of Oxford) to discuss her two-year comparative European research project on how justice systems and family law deal with domestic abuse cases.

Drawing on extensive work with women’s rights organisations and key stakeholders across England & Wales, France, Spain, Italy, and Bosnia & Herzegovina, the research exposes how survivors often face secondary traumatisation within legally sanctioned processes.

We unpack how narrow legal understandings of violence, procedural barriers, and the growing reliance on concepts like “parental alienation” systematically discredit mothers and silence survivors, even where abuse is well-documented.

Placing family law in conversation with human rights obligations under the ECHR and the Istanbul Convention, this episode asks what states are required to do to truly protect women and children, and why current systems can fail to do so.

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Credits

Hosted by Helena Kondak

Joined by Professor Shazia Choudhry

Edited by Rowan Berkley

Cover design by Madeleine Baber

Music by Jacob Carey

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.