FORMER Spice Girl Mel B has launched a new campaign with charity Women’s Aid to end domestic abuse.
She appears in a powerful new video along with Toby Alexander-Smith who played abuser Gray Aitkins in Eastenders.
Mel B was awarded an MBE in May for her work as a patron of Women’s Aid.
Launching the new awareness campaign, yesterday Mel said: “Today, as we launch our campaign Come Together to End Domestic Abuse, I want to ask people to step up and think about what they can do to end domestic abuse, and challenge the attitudes that make people think it is acceptable.
“I really believe that everyone –teachers, doctors, lawyers, parents, friends and relatives of survivors – has a role to play in ending abuse, whether it is directly helping people, or by stopping the myths and victim-blaming – and you can do that wherever you are.”
Her daughter Phoenix Brown, a model, also appears in the new clip.
1.6 million women experience domestic abuse every year, and Women’s Aid is asking people to join together and take five simple steps to make a difference.
Using the hashtag #EndAbuseTogether the charity is calling on everyone to call out abuse if they spot it and speak up.
Fellow Women’s Aid patron Julie Walters is also backing the ‘Come Together to End Domestic Abuse’ campaign.
She said: “It is what we do together that will really make the changes we need, so that the future looks different for young people entering relationships for the first time.
“I ask everyone to think: is there something I could do, no matter how big or how small, to help create a world where domestic abuse isn’t tolerated?”
Home Secretary Priti Patel backed the campaign and said: “This campaign has my full support – for far too long the focus has been on what the victim might have done differently, rather than on the behaviour of the perpetrators themselves.”
