Our impact: Family Law

Our priorities

We believe that women and children should be able to access a family justice system that prioritises safety, fairness and equality.

Too many survivors continue to face barriers when seeking protection in the family courts. Women frequently encounter lengthy delays, inconsistent responses to domestic abuse, difficulties accessing legal advice and representation, and legal processes that are retraumatising.

Working alongside women with lived experience, we utilise the insights from our advice services, education work and policy engagement to identify where change is needed and advocate for a family justice system that works better for women and children.

Read a summary of our top ten recommendations to Government for meaningful change, which we sent to the new elected government in August 2024.

Whilst we are pleased that some of these recommendations have now been enacted, there is still a long way to go to ensure migrant women survivors can live safely. You can read more about this progress in the Stories of Impact section below. In the meantime, we continue to carry out long term work to move towards greater access to justice for all women.

Our current recommendations to Government include:

→ Improved access to early legal advice and legal aid

→ A family justice system that is trauma-informed and survivor-centred

→ Better safeguards for women and children in private law children proceedings

→ Effective implementation and evaluation of Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs)

→ Family court processes that properly recognise and respond to domestic abuse and coercive control

→ Greater accountability and transparency within family justice systems

→ Increased opportunities for women with lived experience to help shape reform

Advice

Every year our lawyers support over 1,600 women through our Family Law services.

Women who call us are facing complex family law issues relating to domestic abuse, child arrangements, divorce, separation, protective injunctions, housing insecurity and child contact disputes.

Our specialist women lawyers provide free, trauma-informed legal advice and casework that assists women to:

• Understand family law options and legal rights for themselves and any children they have
• Make informed decisions about their safety
• Access specialist support and representation where available
• Navigate complex legal systems during periods of crisis
• Represent themselves in legal and tribunal processes when necessary
• Challenge flawed or unjust decision-making, particularly when the impacts of domestic abuse and VAWG have been minimised or overlooked

Through this work, women gain greater understanding of their rights and confidence to make decisions about their futures.

We also provide specialist legal support through wider partnership projects that improve routes into advice and assistance for survivors experiencing domestic abuse.

You can find out more about our family law advice lines and opening times here.

The need and demand for access to free, specialist legal advice far outweighs availability and this contributes to the scale and severity of VAWG.

We lead, contribute to and participate in coordinated advice delivery, evaluation and learning projects to help demonstrate the value of advice and to develop stronger networks and referral pathways in national advice delivery that supports women survivors at the earliest opportunity, quickly and effectively to safely exit abusive situations.

Read examples of advice service evaluations we have led or contributed to here:

‘They saved my life’ Ascent Advice and Counselling Final Report

Stories of impact

Transforming responses to domestic abuse in the family courts through system change

Following the publication of the Harm Report in 2020 – which Rights of Women contributed evidence to – we recognised a pivotal moment to press for long term system change and much-needed national family justice reform.

The Harm Report identified serious concerns about how domestic abuse was understood and responded to within the family justice system and highlighted the experiences of women and children who felt harmed rather than protected by court processes. While national reforms were being developed, Rights of Women identified a gap in practical work to support change at a local level.

In response, we established the Family Justice and Domestic Abuse Partnership, initially in Surrey, bringing together survivors, judges, domestic abuse organisations, Cafcass, local authorities, HMCTS, legal professionals, police and other stakeholders to improve responses to domestic abuse across the local family justice system.

Over three years we have:

• Supported more than 100 local family justice stakeholders to work together to improve responses to domestic abuse.
• Helped establish a dedicated Domestic Abuse Sub-Group within the Local Family Justice Board to ensure domestic abuse remains a central focus of local governance.
• Supported local domestic abuse services to engage directly with family courts to identify and resolve problems affecting survivors.
• Supported implementation of the Safe and Together model, helping professionals focus attention on perpetrators’ behaviour rather than protective parents.

Importantly, this work is now increasingly being led by local partners themselves, creating sustainable change that will continue beyond the life of the project.

Working with survivors, practitioners and learning partners, Rights of Women has developed a comprehensive suite of resources designed to help other family justice areas implement similar approaches.

These include:

• Six thematic learning resources focused on improving responses to domestic abuse.
• Practical implementation tools for family justice professionals.
• Resources for Local Family Justice Boards and local authorities.
• A first-of-its-kind interactive family justice systems map helping professionals identify opportunities for change within their local systems.

The resources were launched nationally in February 2026 at an event with guest speakers from Surrey’s survivor engagement group, DA SEEN, the President of the Family Division and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and attracted more than 400 attendees. Since launching, hundreds more practitioners have accessed the materials and a number of other family justice areas have now expressed interest in working with us.

We are now working in Sussex as a second implementation site, helping to spread learning and build momentum for wider family justice reform.

You can access our learning report, tools for professionals and system map here.

Influencing the future of cohabitation law

For decades, unmarried women have been left without effective legal protections, particularly where domestic abuse, economic abuse or caring responsibilities have created financial disadvantage.

In 2026, Rights of Women submitted detailed recommendations to the Government’s A Fairer End to Relationships consultation, helping shape one of the most significant reviews of family law in a generation.

Rights of Women has long advocated for reform of cohabitation law to better reflect the realities of modern family life and ensure fair outcomes for women and children when relationships end.

Through our advice services, we see the consequences of the current legal framework every day. Women who have built homes, families and financial lives with a partner can be left facing significant uncertainty and insecurity when relationships break down, particularly where domestic abuse or economic abuse has affected their ability to work, save, acquire assets or achieve financial independence.

Following the Government’s launch of its A Fairer End to Relationships consultation, Rights of Women drew on our specialist legal expertise and frontline experience supporting the VAWG sector to provide detailed recommendations on the future of both cohabitation law and financial remedies following relationship breakdown.

Our response called for:

• Greater recognition of the impact of domestic abuse, especially economic abuse on financial outcomes.
• A statutory framework that provides fairer protection for cohabiting couples when relationships end.
• Strong safeguards and judicial discretion to ensure the law can respond to complex individual circumstances.
• Recognition that children should not experience discrimination based on the marriage or civil partnership status of their parents.
• Improved access to legal advice, public legal education and specialist support alongside any legal reforms.

We have also worked with academics, policymakers and legal experts, including examining approaches adopted in countries such as Australia and New Zealand, to help ensure future reforms are both practical and capable of delivering fairer outcomes for women and families.

As Government considers the future of cohabitation law, we continue to ensure that the experiences of women, particularly those affected by domestic abuse, remain at the centre of the conversation.

See our newspiece about our calls for change, listen to us on Women’s Hour and read the full consultation submission Rights of Women response to the Fairer End to Relationships consultation.

We also co-led a joint VAWG sector response to the consultation with Southall Black Sisters and Surviving Economic Abuse. Signed by 37 sector organisations, the submission highlights the sector’s shared priorities for ensuring reforms deliver better outcomes for domestic abuse victim-survivors. You can read the joint submission here: Joint submission from the VAWG sector to the Fairer End to Relationships consultation.

Helping change how the Family Court understands coercive control

In 2021, the Court of Appeal considered four joined appeals involving mothers who argued that family court decisions had failed to adequately protect their children from the impacts of domestic abuse.

The resulting judgment, Re H-N and Others (Children) [2021] EWCA Civ 448, is now a leading authority on domestic abuse in private law children proceedings and has helped shape family court practice across England and Wales.

Rights of Women coordinated a joint intervention in the Court of Appeal alongside Welsh Women’s Aid, Women’s Aid and Rape Crisis England & Wales.

The case provided an important opportunity to address longstanding concerns about how domestic abuse, particularly coercive and controlling behaviour, was being understood within child arrangements proceedings.

The Court of Appeal’s judgment reinforced several important principles, including:

• Recognition that coercive control can be profoundly harmful to children, making it highly relevant when courts are deciding child contact arrangements.
• Confirmation that domestic abuse should be understood as a pattern of behaviour, rather than a series of isolated incidents.
• A clear warning against approaches that minimise abuse because it is regarded as “historic”.
• Guidance that Scott Schedules, which often reduce abuse to lists of individual allegations, are not always the most effective way to capture a survivor’s experience and that narrative evidence may be more appropriate.

Re H-N continues to be regularly cited in family court proceedings and has played an important role in strengthening judicial understanding of domestic abuse and improving the handling of child contact cases involving allegations of abuse.

The judgment remains a significant milestone in the ongoing effort to ensure that the family justice system properly recognises the realities and impacts of violence against women and girls.

Read our reporting of the case here and statement on the outcome here.

This important case is a significant step forward, but much more work remains as we discuss in a guest post on the Transparency Project here.

Challenging unsafe family court decisions based on allegations of parental alienation

Through a long-term casework project with women facing allegations of parental alienation, we have established critical learning and a detailed body of evidence to challenge the misuse of parental alienation arguments in family court proceedings involving domestic abuse.

As a result of the project, we have played a role in supporting a number of important test cases. In one significant case in October 2025, we supported a mother whose case reached the High Court after findings of parental alienation had been made against her. The High Court overturned the decision, finding that it relied on flawed evidence from an unregulated expert.

This was an important development because concerns have been raised for many years about the use of parental alienation allegations in cases involving domestic abuse. The judgment has the potential to open routes for other women to challenge unsafe decisions and has helped stimulate wider discussion about standards of evidence and safeguarding within family proceedings.

Read our newspiece about the case here.

We remain involved in further strategic cases that seek to improve outcomes for women and children affected by domestic abuse.

Centring women’s experiences at the heart of reform in family justice

Family justice reform works best when it is informed by the experiences of the women and children most affected.

Through the Family Justice and Domestic Abuse Partnership, Rights of Women has worked closely with DA SEEN, a survivor-led group whose members have played a central role in shaping local and national learning.

Survivors have:

• Helped develop learning materials for family justice professionals.
• Shared their experiences with senior justice stakeholders.
• Presented directly to the Local Family Justice Board.
• Influenced recommendations on improving responses to domestic abuse.

This work reflects our commitment to ensuring that family justice reform is informed not only by legal expertise, but also by the lived experiences of women who have navigated the system themselves.