New Film Views Domestic Abuse Through the Eyes of a Child – The Monster Who Came To Tea

Women’s Aid have produced a video and launched a new campaign ‘The Monster Who Came To Tea’, highlighting the reality that domestic abuse impacts both women and children.

Watch the campaign film here.

We’ve been working with advertising agency House 337, who helped create our ’He’s Coming Home’ film as well as our National Emergency campaign, to produce this powerful film ahead of International Women’s Day. It tells the story of a mother and daughter experiencing domestic abuse, seen through the eyes of a young girl named Lily.

As you’ll know, in 2021 we, together with the sector, successfully campaigned for the government to recognise that children do not just witness abuse but experience it, too, in the Domestic Abuse Act. Despite this, the current funding of services does not go far enough to protect children and does not reflect the reality of domestic abuse.

An estimated 1.8 million children in England experienced domestic abuse in 2023-2024 (Women’s Aid Annual Audit 2025) but the number of organisations running services for children and young people in the community without dedicated funding doubled in the last year, from 15.7% to 31.4% (Women’s Aid Annual Audit 2025).

We are calling on the government to commit to a minimum funding settlement of £516m per annum in England for specialist domestic abuse services, including a ring-fenced fund for ‘by and for’ services.

Alongside this we’re calling for the introduction of a Children and Young People Support Fund of £46 million to ensure that all specialist domestic abuse services have a dedicated children and young people worker. We’ll be using this powerful film to ask our members and supporters to join us in calling on the government by signing our open letter.

The video has gone out across our website, social media channels, and will also be shared in public spaces such as billboards and bus stops, as well as cinema advertising.

If you would like to be involved in supporting the campaign do let us know and we can share some resources with you.