Queen Camilla has vowed to "eradicate" domestic violence in an ITV special Her Majesty The Queen: Behind Closed Doors, which aired on 11th November 2024.
The 90-minute documentary follows the queen's movements over the last year in never-before-seen footage of private meetings with survivors and campaigners of domestic abuse.
From visiting refuges in secret locations to speak with survivors, to spotlighting the women who have in turn, inspired her to spend the last decade raising awareness of the 'heinous' crime of male violence, the powerful film has done what it set out to do: it has started a new wave of discussions about the abuses women are forced to endure daily. And with 75,000 people (majority women) in the UK being at high and imminent risk of being murdered or seriously injured as a result of domestic abuse, these discussions could not have come soon enough.
Shedding much-needed light on the often taboo topics of coercive control and marital rape, the programme highlighted just how toxic – and fatal – gaslighting, emotional blackmail and 'love bombing' could be.
"Coercive control is almost the most frightening bit of domestic abuse ... You meet somebody, you think they’re wonderful, attractive, and love you, and then bit by bit they start to undermine you. They take away your friends ... family. They take control of your money. They start dressing you. And yet all the time [they] still believe they’re doing it because they love them." – HM Queen Camilla
The Queen also revealed the woman who inspired her to begin her own works to help survivors in the form of Diana Parkes: the mother of Joanna Simpson who was brutally killed by her estranged husband in 2010, and in whose memory The Joanna Simpson Foundation was launched.
Reflecting on that first meeting with Ms Parkes in 2016, the Queen said: “She’s an 80-year-old grandmother. And her daughter who she loved dearly was killed at the hands of such an evil perpetrator. I think she’s so strong ... I admire her more than I can say.”
The Queen ended the special by calling on the nation to "Keep speaking up, keep looking out for one another."
"If we could just get more people discussing it, talking about it – people are so shocked by what they hear ... hopefully, in the end, [we can] put an end to it."
As part of our answer to that call, we are proud to be launching our first ever #BishopOnABike event on 29th November 2024, so that men everywhere can begin to launch discussions about the parts they MUST play, if violence against women is ever to be eradicated.
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