Private violence/private transport: the role of means of transport in women’s mobility to escape from domestic violence in England and Wales

This article highlights a gendered and forced mobility which has been under-recognised in the literature on mobility. It explores the hidden relocations of women (often with children) due to intimate partner abuse; presenting findings from mixed methods research on women’s journeys to escape domestic violence, including analysis of over 80 journey segments made by 20 women within England and Wales, and from abroad. Focusing on means of transport, the research found that under a third of journey segments were made by public transport, and these tended to be longer distances; that journeys by disabled women were more likely to be by private transport, and that journeys from rural areas were more likely to be with the assistance of others. Thematic analysis of interviews at different stages of women’s journeys is used to explore their experiences of different means of transport in terms of degrees of control and agency, in terms of losing or retaining personal possessions on the move; and in highlighting the role of others’ assistance in compounding or counteracting the implications of abuse. Women’s domestic violence journeys are thereby contextualised within wider mobilities research, uncovering the inequalities and implications of this hidden internal displacement in the UK.