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A leading charity established in Merseyside to help people affected by ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA) and harmful practices is celebrating its 15th birthday and helping more than 1,000 survivors find their ‘new beginning’.
Established in 2010, for its first six years the charity was run by a small team of volunteers, providing advice on HBA and harmful practices to frontline professionals and raising public awareness. In 2016, its first major grant* allowed the charity to set up its direct intervention team, directly helping with survivors and those at risk to leave abusive environments.
Savera UK will mark its milestone year with a series of events, including its ‘March to End HBA’ which this year will take place on Saturday 27th September and will culminate in a ‘festival of culture’ at St Luke’s Bombed Out Church on Leece Street in Liverpool, under the theme ‘Culture is Beautiful: No Excuse for Abuse’.
The event, which will feature high-profile speakers and diverse performances, will form part of a wider campaign to highlight that HBA and harmful practices continue to happen here in Merseyside and across the UK, and that they can affect all genders and communities, as evidenced by new research undertaken by the charity and the University of Liverpool.
The soon-to-be-published paper, ‘Practitioner Views on Defining ‘Honour’-Based Abuse: A Focus on Atypical Cases’, highlights that the framing of HBA and harmful practices as “cultural” or “gendered” issues risks cases not being identified, particularly those that are not from ‘stereotypical communities’, where there is considered to be a prevalence.
The campaign also aims to raise awareness of the vast range of harmful practices that many people are not aware of, including virginity testing, conversion ‘therapy’ and spiritual abuse.
In the last year alone Savera UK has helped 339 clients and received almost 700 calls to its national helpline and submissions to its online referral forms. As well as seeing a 51% increase in referrals for forced marriage and 33% increase for FGM, it also noted a much more significant increase in less well-recognised harmful practices. These include spiritual abuse, where referrals doubled, referrals relating to sexuality and gender (125% increase) and forced servitude, referrals for which increased by 433%.
Afrah Qassim, Savera UK CEO and Founder, explained: “In 2010 we established Savera UK because, contrary to what data showed, we knew that HBA and harmful practices happened here and that people needed a service that understood these issues and how to respond to them.
“Since then, we have helped more than 1,000 people across the UK and provided advice and training to thousands of frontline professionals. We now have data that shows these issues are present and recognition, identification and response has greatly improved – but there is still a long way to go.
“Our research with the University of Liverpool has already identified the characteristics of ‘honour’ based abuse and harmful practices, providing a baseline to support better identification. However, these forms of abuse are still widely viewed as being part of certain ‘cultures or communities, or only women and girls are considered to be at risk.
“We are also seeing a much broader range of reasons for referral, including harmful practices such as spiritual abuse, conversion ‘therapy’ and forced servitude, which are far less recognised or understood by professionals and the general public.
“In 2010 we challenged the myth that HBA doesn’t happen here. Now, in 2025, we are using our 15th birthday year to evidence that these issues continue to happen and ANYONE can be affected, regardless of culture, background, gender, age, sexuality or disability, and that this kind of abuse can take many forms that can easily be missed.
“Separating these forms of abuse from culture or certain communities is absolutely pivotal to improving recognition and response. HBA and harmful practices are not a part of any culture; they are simply a collection of abuse characteristics and a violation of human rights.
“Culture, on the other hand, is beautiful. It is music, language, dance, art and food, the things that shape our identity and allow us to belong. Culture is never an excuse for abuse.”
As well as the March to End HBA and festival of culture on Saturday 27th September, there will also be a special free awareness session on Modern Slavery relating to ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA) in October 2025, and a free online event for professionals on Wednesday 10th December 2025 ‘HBA and Harmful Practices Happen Here – Responding As A Frontline Professional’.
To find out more about Savera UK’s 15th birthday events and campaign, visit: https://www.saverauk.co.uk/15-years-of-saverauk/