The Black Dot Campaign is encouraging people to mark their palms with a small black dot as a silent way of telling people who can help they are in trouble. Photo / via Facebook
The Black Dot Campaign is encouraging people to mark their palms with a small black dot as a silent way of telling people who can help they are in trouble. Photo / via Facebook
An online campaign to help domestic abuse victims ask for help without having to speak up has been praised by a Kiwi abuse survivor and activist for starting important conversations about violence at home.
The Black Dot Campaign campaign was started last week by a domestic abuse survivor from the UK and has since gone global, reaching millions of people and, according to the campaign's founder, it has already helped 49 women leave abusive relationships.
"The original ethos for this campaign was to enable a victim to put a dot on their hand around someone they trusted to enable a conversation to start, so they could open that door and hopefully start a process of seeking professional help," reads a post on the campaign's Facebook page.
In 2003, Simonne Butler's hands were severed with a samurai sword by her then-partner, Antoine Dixon in a frenzied, methamphetamine fueled attack.
Butler said the attack was a culmination of years of abuse, abuse she suffered in silence because she was too afraid and embarrassed to ask for help.
Simonne Butler has detailed what happened during - and leading up to - the sword attack by Antoine Dixon (inset). Photo / Chris Loufte, file
"It is very hard to verbalise it and sometimes you just need someone to ask you the question and then it will all spew out [but] it is very hard to put your hand up and say 'hey I need help'," she said.
"I'm a cautionary tale. I was too scared to leave and I knew that I needed to ... I didn't want anybody to know what was going on and then finally things came to a head and he tried to kill me."
Butler said she was "so excited" the campaign was sparking conversation, although she had some reservations about it.
"When I first heard about it was like 'oh my god that's so amazing' and then in a split second I had all of this terror raging through me because if you know about it the abuser might know about it ... I know from my experience if I had of been caught with that, there would have been hell to pay."
She said the dot would not be effective for trying to communicate to people when the abuser was present, but in a private situation like a doctor's appointment it could be very useful.
"When you're too scared to ask for help but you could [show the dot] and you don't need to say anything someone knows exactly where you're coming from, they know exactly the situation you're in, I find that really empowering."
Even if the black dot wasn't a perfect solution, Butler said she was glad for anything which furthered public conversation about domestic violence.
She said there was still a lot of shame and stigma attached to the subject, so getting the conversation out in the open was a positive thing.
"What I love about this is this is a lady in England who has been through domestic abuse and she has come up with this and it's gone around the world.
"People are talking about this people are thinking about new ways to help people ... get out of situations. If we can change the culture to start think about helping people instead of blaming then then I think that's amazing," she said.
"When I think of all the women and children that are still living in terror and feel like they have no way out, this sort of thing gives me hope because it means the culture is starting to change."
