The physical and mental abuse Sana suffered took place over many years and left her isolated, lonely and "psychologically destroyed".

A Kurdish refugee living in Glasgow, she is talking candidly about the extreme violence she suffered at the hands of her former husband and his family.

Sana - we've changed her name to protect her identity - is speaking to The Ferret at Freedom from Torture's (FFT) centre in Glasgow where torture survivors are counselled and helped to rebuild their lives.

She has agreed to talk about her past as part of a new campaign by the charity's Women Together group which aims to raise awareness about the scale of gender-based violence in the UK and abroad, while urging politicians to ensure there is effective support to help survivors overcome trauma.

Many people supported by FFT in Glasgow are refugee women and all have survived horrific violence in their home countries and also some in Scotland. They include Sana who had to leave Iraqi-Kurdistan for safety. As a child, she was deprived of an education when her father arranged her marriage to an older man who constantly beat her. His parents supported the abusive behaviour and Sana was even separated from her only child.

"Being physically and psychologically tortured daily was not easy to bear, and the pain and suffering were unimaginable," she explains. "I lost myself and my sense of existence - I felt like I was just nothing. This constant state of fear made me feel even more powerless and trapped. Additionally, I was deprived of my right to be a mother, which compounded my feelings of loss and despair."

Violence against women is endemic in many countries. In the UK, the government said last year it was treating violence against women and girls as a "national emergency" after it emerged offences in England and Wales had risen by 37 per cent between 2018 and 2023. At least one in every 12 women will be a victim each year, a report by the National Police Chiefs Council said, with the exact number of victims expected to be much higher.

In Scotland, where figures are logged differently, there were 14,484 sexual crimes recorded by Police Scotland last year and 63,867 incidents of domestic abuse - an increase of three per cent compared to the previous year. That equates to 5,322 incidents every month, or around 177 each day.

Only this month, the family of a young mum who died four years ago demanded that police investigate claims her death might not have been suicide. Demi Hannaway, from Airdrie, died in May 2021 after being the subject of physical and mental abuse at the hands of her partner Andrew Brown.

FFT - which campaigns against torture and for the rights of survivors seeking asylum in the UK - is one of many charities helping women who have survived violence. Established in 1985 in England, the UK-wide charity has helped more than 50,000 people from at least 100 nations. Savage beatings, whippings, burnings, cuttings and rape are all common methods of torture, FFT says.

Its Scottish facility opened in Glasgow in July 2004. The organisation's head of clinical services in Scotland, Paula Shiels, says that on a daily basis staff witness first-hand the "very real impact" that gender-based violence has on people's lives. "It's shameful that the survivors we support, who have endured violence in their home countries, continue to encounter it in this country," adds Sheils, who is calling on both the Scottish and UK governments to invest in programmes to better protect women and girls.

The campaign by the Women Together group aims to advance women's rights and ensure they have better access to vital services such as mental health support and legal assistance. Women from Black and ethnic minority communities who suffer domestic violence often face additional barriers around language, police discrimination and immigration rules, which means crimes may be under-reported.

Being physically and psychologically tortured daily was not easy to bear, and the pain a...