Changing Lives, a charity that aims to help people in challenging circumstances, has received £1.3 million in funding from The Home Office, which will go towards tackling violence against women and girls in the North East.
The money has been awarded as part of the What Works Funding government scheme and will help the organisation expand to cover even more areas of the UK, where Women and Children are suffering from abuse and neglect.
The charity focuses on women targeted for sexual exploitation, and it covers grooming online and tech abuse which is a growing issue with the rise of new technology.
The three year-funding will be used to recruit a service manager, as well as several outreach workers to increase the amount of work they can do. Data analysts will also be put in place to help to identify and intervene in the exploitation of women and girls and protect them from further harm.
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Laura McIntyre is the Head of Women's and Children's Services at Changing Lives, and she has spoken about the work the charity does and the impact this funding will have.
"Changing Lives has been providing support to adult women who have been targeted, groomed or exposed to sexual abuse for over 15 years.
"As part of our work, we have developed an approach to reach women online, ‘Net-reach’, for women who are advertising sexual services who may require some support on a range of issues, and/or have experiences of abuse and sexual violence. Some of the women we connect with, on online spaces, have multiple unmet needs and have told us that offering 'sex for rent' or ‘free sex’ to support with other survival needs is a common experience, and is driven by poverty, hardship, and the Cost-of-Living Crisis.
"During Covid-19, we developed a report called Net-reach, where we observed a worrying number of young women and girls (18-25 years old) advertising sexual services online, raising concerns about child sexual exploitation and ongoing vulnerability to abuse in adulthood.
"Thanks to the funding, this project will allow our specialist team to build up relationships with women in a growing environment, where we can offer support to prevent sexual abuse and exploitation. We understand that not all women are abused online but organisationally we see increasing numbers of women accessing our services after being harmed online, traumatised, and feeling suicidal."
The Minister for Safeguarding, Sarah Dines has also spoken about how important she believed projects like the ones carried out by Changing Lives are.
"Tackling all forms of violence against women and girls is a government priority, so that women and girls are safe everywhere - at home, online, at work and on the streets.
"We are proud to invest further in projects which identify the most effective ways to intervene early and prevent these crimes from being committed in the first place, which will protect those most vulnerable to abuse."
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