A Scottish Labour MP has revealed that she left an abusive relationship after a friend encouraged her to do so.
Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch MP Katrina Murray said that she “didn’t believe it” when her friend told her she was in an abusive relationship. But she said that those words caused her to “think and reflect” and “got me to get out”.
Murray, who was first elected in July, was speaking in a debate on violence against women and girls in the House of Commons on Thursday afternoon. She said that violence also includes coercive control like “cutting off” women from their friends and family.
Murray told the Commons: “Violence takes many forms, not just physical or sexual, but emotional, financial and coercive control. Those acts which don’t leave physical bruises have just as bruising an effect.
“The effect of cutting the woman, who is on the receiving end of this, off from their families, off from their friends that support them and not necessarily their abuser, cutting women off from the people who will provide the support, who will provide the help and from those who will utter those immortal words ‘You know you’re living in an abusive relationship’.
“And thank you to (Karen Bradley), because do not underestimate the power of those words, or the power of those friends, because it was one person who uttered that to me, who got me to get out. And I didn’t believe it, I didn’t recognise it, I sat down and pooh-poohed it, and I thought, and I reflected.”
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