‘Trauma spills outward’: Time to stop the courts failing women

Content warning: sexual assault

There is a moment that happens almost every day. An email arrives from my daughter’s school. I open a letter from her GP or log in to her school resources. I pull out her passport to plan a trip. My child’s name appears – and with it, her father’s surname. The man who raped me. 

My body reacts before my mind can intervene. Tight chest. Shallow breath. Shame and disgust. A sudden, visceral reminder of abuse that a court has already found to be true.

The family court accepted that I was raped, that the abuse had a profound and lasting impact on me, and that my daughter and I need protection – and yet it has refused to allow her to change her name.

This isn’t symbolic. It’s lived. Trauma doesn’t stay neatly contained in the past; it shows up on paperwork, at parents’ evening, in moments that should be ordinary.

The judge said that changing it would be “confusing”. That it would “rupture a link”. That my motivation was to erase her father – rather than to protect my child’s emotional world.

But nobody else in that courtroom had to grapple with what it means to force a mother to say her rapist’s name every day, out loud. None of them had to work out how it feels to tie that name to her child. 

There is one moment from court that stays with me. I was explaining how hearing the name triggers flashbacks. How my daughter notices my reaction. How trauma spills outward, even when you try to shield your child from it. But the court didn’t want to hear it. In the end, my words, my experiences simply didn’t seem to matter.

I was told what I could and could not do with my own child, by people who will never have to live with the consequences of that decision in their daily lives.

The other day my daughter said, “Mummy I told the teacher that I did submit my monster drawing for the competition, but they said they could not find it… they said it was under a different name… but Mummy I just wrote my name.”

My body froze, tensed. My daughter confidently speaks the name she identifies with, yet the system does not reward her confidence – it creates confusion, frustration, and more questions.

The law speaks often about children’s welfare. But welfare is not abstract – it lives in kitchens, classrooms, and bedtime routines, in the quiet labour of a survivor trying to rebuild a life without being dragged backwards by the state.

This case is not just about a name. It is about identity, dignity, and whether the legal system truly understands trauma – or whether it continues to perpetuate it.

That is why I am now taking my case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Because a name should be something you bear with pride. Because no child should inherit trauma as part of their identity. And because sometimes, justice begins with something as simple – and as profound – as breaking the link.

• The mother has asked to remain anonymous.