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King Charles III

Duchess of Cornwall moved to tears after hearing tales of domestic abuse

The Duchess of Cornwall was moved to tears on Tuesday morning as she heard from women who were speaking of their experience of domestic abuse.

Camilla heard the horrifying stories of abuse as she visited Women’s Aid, a charity which seeks to empower women who have been victim to abuse.

Giving a speech at Women’s Aid, the Duchess praised the BBC Radio drama, The Archers, for its depiction of domestic abuse in a long-running storyline.

She said: “The advice you gave to The Archers has been so brilliant because people who have never heard about [domestic violence] before, people who didn’t understand about coercive control, now understand.

“They had no idea, I am probably guilty of that too. A lot of us had no idea of quite how terrible the whole situation is, and how easily people are taken in.

“Along comes a charming man who is polite and nice to everybody else, so they all see his good side and they don’t see this other dark side.”

The issue of domestic abuse is close to Camilla’s heart, and she has conducted many engagements visiting charities who try and empower women.

Domestic abuse can be life-threatening, more than a 100,000 people in the United Kingdom are at high and imminent risk of being seriously injured or murdered every year.

In 2013-14, there was 85 women who were murdered by their partner or ex-partner in England and Wales.

Last year, Camilla was also upset after hearing yet more tales of abuse that women have been victim to from their partner.

“It’s so important that people like yourselves speak up otherwise we gloss over it. And this is too important an issue to ignore.” Camilla said to the women she met.

“Stories like this just have to be aired otherwise domestic abuse becomes a taboo subject.

“I want to do anything I can to help raise this issue. All of you going around and talking about it does create awareness.”

 

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