Rape and sexual abuse support charities are on the brink of closure as a funding crisis coincides with a surge in demand following the Russell Brand verdict, The Survivors Trust has revealed. Six charities have shut down in the last 18 months due to funding pressures, while four more are in talks about stopping their services, according to the membership organisation supporting 120 agencies that help survivors.
The helpline faced an 83% surge in calls from survivors on Wednesday, following the high-profile Russell Brand rape verdict. The Survivors Trust accused the government of 'cutting funding left, right, and centre'.
Funding cuts despite rising demand
Lucy Duckworth, National Policy Lead at The Survivors Trust, told Metro: 'Everyone's talking about the perpetrators and no one is talking about what happens to those victims now.'
'It's not that funding isn't matching an increase in demand. Funding has been wilfully and deliberately cut, despite an increase in demand. And there is no other service that can deliver it. Life-saving services are not getting what they need to keep on doing their work.'
Duckworth, who served on The Independent Inquiry into Childhood Sexual Abuse, warned that funding is too often temporary, with agencies spending months applying for a grant for just one year. Subsidies are regularly ring-fenced for specific groups of people, meaning the money cannot be used for crucial services for all survivors, such as their helpline.
Charities forced to close
The consequences are that sexual abuse and rape support agencies are 'making redundancies across the board'. This comes despite demand for sexual abuse services being 'higher than ever' as more survivors come forward after Russell Brand was found guilty of rape and sexual assault on Monday.
Four charities that work with rape and sexual abuse survivors are currently undergoing talks around redundancies and closing some or all services due to funding pressures. Rape Crisis also told Metro that three of their centres have been forced to close largely due to financial pressures.
One of The Survivors Trust's specialist agencies which shut in October last year was Jewish Sexual Abuse Support, offering services to victims of intimate abuse in the Jewish community. Their then-CEO Erica Marks called the closure 'devastating' for the survivors they were supporting, who were 'left in the lurch'.
The agency was forced to stop operating after they lost £80,000 worth of funding. The charity tried 'everything' to replace the money, including asking central government, but they were unable to guarantee enough income to stay open.
Marks told Metro: 'We were a super lean organisation. We stripped everything right back. But it could not run on thin air. We felt like we personally were letting down the survivors we worked with.'
'I had countless meetings with countless ministers, but that did not translate into consistent and protected funding. We are hearing politicians say they support sexual violence, but if you say that and then remove services, it is just not true. It feels very disingenuous.'
Impact on survivors and services
Charities that were forced to shut down due to funding problems include First Person Plural, Jewish Sexual Abuse Support, Kinergy, SAVANA London, Centre for Personal Safety, and Trust House Lancashire.
Marks added that charity closures overburden other health services and support networks, costing the government more in the long run. She continued: 'We are all paying the price for it. The money being spent on these clients keeps them out of the NHS and minimises the amount of benefits they would be on. We could support them back into good health and into work.'
The charity leader is particularly upset about the men and boys who made up a third of JSAS' clients, who now have no dedicated support service within the Jewish Community to get help from.
Rape Crisis England & Wales also warned that more services for victims could be lost without 'long-term investment'. Three of their support centres for victims shut between 2024 and 2025 due to funding shortfalls, with only Ministry of Justice funding preventing further immediate closures.
The charity's Chief Operating Officer, Laura Parker, told Metro: 'Every survivor of rape and sexual abuse should have access to specialist, free and quality assured support to help them rebuild their lives from the devastation of abuse. Many specialist organisations in the sector remain on a knife-edge. Survivors should not then face a postcode lottery in which the standard of care and level of support they receive is dependent on where they live.'
Alicia Kearns MP, Shadow Safeguarding Minister, said survivors were being left with nowhere to turn due to the funding cuts. She told Metro: 'These charities do invaluable work. Labour promised to halve violence against women and girls, but on their watch the services that help survivors are going under. The Conservatives will always put victims first, and Labour needs to do the same.'
The government insisted it was making its largest ever investment in victim support over the next three years. Part of this money will go towards the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund (RASASF), which provides funding to over 60 local, specialist organisations across England and Wales.
A government spokesperson said: 'We are investing more than £1 billion in support for victims over the next three years, including £550 million for specialist services such as domestic abuse support, and nearly £500 million to provide safe accommodation for those fleeing abuse. Our Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy includes more than 200 commitments to prevent abuse, support victims and relentlessly pursue perpetrators, backed by record investment in victim services.'
