Lancaster hosts exhibition showing shocking truth about domestic violence as part of 16 Days of Activism campaign

The 16 Days of Activism is a United Nations campaign first launched in 1991 to raise awareness of the issue.

Dr Anna Hopkins, a lecturer at the Open University who actively researches domestic abuse, is holding a shoe exhibition at the Gregson Centre in Lancaster.

Sixteen pairs of shoes are being exhibited, in which eight pairs have been painted red to remember those killed by domestic violence and eight pairs have been painted blue to remember those who took their own lives as a result of domestic violence they had experienced.

In the UK, every two days a woman is murdered as a result of domestic violence and it is estimated around three women a week die by suicide as a result of domestic violence.

Every pair of shoes will tell the story of a woman who has lost her life as a result of domestic violence.

The shoe exhibition is available to see until December 10 in the bar of the Gregson Centre in Moorgate.

In addition to the shoe exhibition, Anna will be running 5km every day, totalling 90km in the 16 day period, with each run dedicated to one of the women's stories that will be told in the shoe exhibition.

Anna is raising money for AAFDA - a unique service offering specialist and expert advocacy and peer support to families in England and Wales who are bereaved following fatal domestic abuse.

You can donate to the cause online at https://www.justgiving.com/page/anna-hopkins-1700484990552