A reputed domestic abuse charity in the Greater Easterhouse area of Glasgow closed its doors permanently due to bankruptcy on the 29th of February 2024 after 30 years of operation. The closure, which initially appeared to be an unfortunate outcome of a dispute between the Board of Directors and employees, turned out to be a complex web of mystery. It involves serious allegations against the Directors, the strange silence of Scottish Women’s Aid, government authorities and politicians, hiring an expensive PR company, lawyers and HR companies, and ambiguous grounds for insolvency. 'The Abandoned' documentary attempts to expose the reasons behind the suspicious closure of Glasgow East Women's Aid (GEWA) and unravel the impact of this shutdown on the employees and the women and children experiencing domestic violence in GEWA's service area. The documentary details the issue through interviews with employees of GEWA, Unite Scotland and a domestic abuse survivor. It also features a comprehensive analysis of the Freedom of Information requests and official e-mail statements from the relevant government authorities. Alison Maclean, Regional Officer of Unite Scotland; Dr Mairead Tagg, a clinical psychologist; Elizabeth Shanks, a domestic abuse survivor from Lanarkshire, Scotland and a former employee of GEWA are the interviewees who participated in the documentary.
I am excited to share the teaser trailer for 'The Abandoned', my documentary on the unexplained shutdown of Glasgow East Women's Aid. I created the documentary in this August as my final investigative journalism project for the MSc in International Journalism at the University of Stirling.
