Prof Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson

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Prof Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson is a world leading senior researcher and Professor of Intersectional Justice with over 17,000 publications citing her work (h-35/i-10-55) which includes 100 publications whereof over 50 peer reviewed articles. Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=kM8LTfkAAAAJ&hl=en

Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6124-2730

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The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/profiles/prof-sonja-ayeb-karlsson-313955

🚨 NEW RESEARCH ARTICLE 🚨I am proud to share my latest study just published in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family L...
18/08/2026

🚨 NEW RESEARCH ARTICLE 🚨

I am proud to share my latest study just published in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. It exposes the harrowing ways domestic abuse perpetrators use parental responsibility (PR) to legally entrap their victims.

⚖️ Research Insights

My analysis of case law from 1995 to 2023 tracks the legacy of Jade’s Law — a vital step that suspended PR for parents convicted of domestic homicide. However, my findings show why this protection must be extended further.

🔍 Key Findings:

* Weaponising PR From Prison: The system still permits abusers to exert psychological control and dictate everyday choices directly and even from behind prison walls.

* The Repeal Must Be Extended: While the recent removal of the presumption of parental involvement is a massive victory, legal reform must go further to fully dismantle the structural ties binding victims to abusers.

* Silenced by “Alienation” Claims: Abusers use counter-allegations of “parental alienation” to weaponise the court, penalising mothers who try to protect their children.

* The Hague Convention Border Trap: The 1980 Hague Convention is frequently exploited by perpetrators to block migrant mothers from travelling or returning to their home countries.

* Gendered Immobility: These legal frameworks create a form of state-led entrapment, controlling mothers’ movements and separating them from vital support networks.

🔄 Moving Forward

True safety for victim-survivors requires an overhaul of how the courts handle parental responsibility.

We must stop allowing the family court system to be used as a state-led tool for gendered immobility.

📖 Read the open-access paper: “We owe it to them, her children”: Jade’s law in an era of so-called ‘parental alienation’ – how parental responsibility and the presumption of parental involvement entrap women and children to perpetrators of domestic abuse.

Ayeb-Karlsson, S. (2026). ‘We owe it to them, her children’: Jade’s law in an era of so-called ‘parental alienation’ – how parental responsibility and the presumption of parental involvement entrap women and children to perpetrators of domestic abuse. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2026.2666723

🔗 The link to the full study is in my bio.

17/08/2026

Three months ago, I posted a clip from Hayden’s interview with on her new biography () in which she spoke about her experience of escaping domestic violence and how abusers always find a way to weave themselves back into the lives of their targets.

In the same interview, Hayden also described her battles surrounding the loss of custody over her daughter Kaya.

A recent study from the UK, showed how mothers who lose custody over their children are seven times more likely to die within a time period of ten years following the custody loss. The study cites substance use and su***de as some of the causes of death registered among these mothers.

Today Hayden was found dead which is reported to have been the result of an overdose.

Keeping this context in mind, it’s difficult for me to not feel that Hayden may still have been with us if our societies would better prioritise and support mothers in similar situations.

Rest in peace , our thoughts are with you and your daughter!

I met Simone* outside a supermarket. I see her sign in passing; “I Lost My Home due to Domestic Violence”.I feel like I ...
08/08/2026

I met Simone* outside a supermarket. I see her sign in passing; “I Lost My Home due to Domestic Violence”.

I feel like I should go back and talk to her. I do and ask if I can do anything to help. I tell her that I research the impacts of domestic abuse and violence and that I have come across many women who end up losing their homes.

She fled here she explains to escape her violent ex. The police told her to go anywhere for her own protection as he has threatened to kill her. The problem, she explains, is that she will not be accepted into a women’s shelter until she is considered settled in the city.

She hasn’t been here for four to six months yet, so she is forced to sleep on the street. She has gone back to the police and contacted health and domestic abuse service providers but they all say the same thing.

She decided to sleep next to this supermarket as the security guard knows her and keeps an eye out as she sleeps. When she manages to sleep. She is scared of getting r***d, robbed, physically abused and worse; “The streets are no place for an abused woman”, she says.

Most nights the sudden sounds of the city triggers her PTSD and she wakes up thinking she is about to get attacked or killed.

She explains that her ex is part of an organized criminal gang where she used to live. The abuse escalated severely as she got pregnant with their first child.

It cumulated after the scan which revealed the s*x of the baby, they were expecting a little girl, Simone’s first child and only daughter.

“He didn’t want a girl, he wanted a boy so he killed her”, she says while looking into my eyes. “He stabbed me straight into my stomach”, when I was about five to six months pregnant, “here”, she says and shows me the scars on her lower abdomen.

“I keep her with me”, she says and shows me a tattoo of a heart on her arm centering an angle.

“I lost the ability to have children. The uterus was so damaged that I had to have an hysterectomy. I will never be a mum again”, she says.

Simone* is a true survivor, she will go far, help save lives, and yet our society leaves her sleeping on the streets at night, while the man who killed her daughter gets to rest in a warm bed!

*Simone is an alias and not her real name. It has been changed to protect her identity.

If you are working with a Domestic Abuse service provider in the UK who can help Simone get into a shelter, please DM me.

31/07/2026

What if we could all see the weight people carry as a result of s*xual violence and trauma?

Never assume that you know what someone has been through or get hung up on their successes or apparent happiness.

Unhealed trauma and scars are not always visible and openly available to the outsider eye.

Watch the impactful, “Life Sentence,” from .today, a rock becomes a visible reminder of the invisible burden so many survivors carry every day after experiencing abuse.

It’s a powerful call to look beyond what we can see and challenge our assumptions. And that sometimes the most meaningful thing we can do is simply show up with empathy.

Source: .today

“Dumped in a hotel by the sea”Far from safe havens, UK asylum accommodations became targets for child trafficking and ex...
26/07/2026

“Dumped in a hotel by the sea”

Far from safe havens, UK asylum accommodations became targets for child trafficking and exploitation.

Our new peer-reviewed research highlights how the UK Government’s use of hotels left lone children seeking asylum unprotected. Far from being safe havens, these accommodations became targets and hunting grounds from which vulnerable children were recruited by traffickers for s*xual, labour, and criminal exploitation.

In 2023, shockwaves spread across the UK surrounding hundreds of missing unaccompanied children from Home Office ‘emergency’ hotels. Concerningly some were found in the control of traffickers. Few professionals were allowed into the hotels which limited the risk evaluation of human (re-)trafficking and exploitation. This study, applying a trauma-informed storytelling methodological approach, investigated the lived experiences of 22 professionals and children. The research provides a voice to children housed in the hotels. We conclude that the trafficking and exploitation risks remain to unaccompanied children. The UK Government must conduct an independent inquiry into the disappearance of children from the hotels to better safeguard unaccompanied children in the future.

📖 Read the full study free and open access on Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law (Taylor & Francis).

Ayeb-Karlsson, S., Valiquette, T., Cockbain, E., and Durán, L. (2026). “Dumped in a hotel by the sea”: the risks and harms of human trafficking and exploitation associated with placing unaccompanied children seeking asylum in UK Home Office hotels. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 48(2), 175–201. doi: 10.1080/09649069.2026.2660500

25/07/2026

The most dangerous place for a woman is her own home.

I am confident that many more countries see every other woman experiencing domestic abuse and violence in their lifetime.

———————-

When first addressed the topic of domestic violence back in 1986, one out of four women in the United States were impacted by this form of abuse.

Today, that number has escalated to one out of two women who will experience s*xual violence, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Oprah recently sat down with journalist, writer and professor to talk about the domestic violence epidemic, why it’s becoming more prevalent, and what steps women can take to protect themselves and their families.

Source:

As we leave the 2026 World Cup behind us, I want to show my appreciation and respect for Jude Bellingham with the rest o...
22/07/2026

As we leave the 2026 World Cup behind us, I want to show my appreciation and respect for Jude Bellingham with the rest of the world.
Not simply for his contribution as football player but for the values he brought to the World Cup this year.

I played football as a little girl from the age of 5 into my teenage period (up until I had to stop due to an injury). The sport has always meant a lot to me and to my entire family.

It has deeply saddened me to see its association to violence in the UK, both inside the home and out on the streets.

Now more than ever do we need people like Jude unifying the country, and us humans globally, who despite his young age show tremendous wisdom.

As a young BAME man and football player representing England, by acknowledging male vulnerability and male emotional needs to achieve safety and live well, he will form part in changing an entire generation for the better.

Transformational change of masculinity and masculine values through representations such as that of Jude will help increase mental health for an entire generation (boys and girls) while simultaneously helping in eliminating violence by shifting the narrative.

Being a man does not mean perpetrating violence and domination for respect or in Jude’s own words:

“I have felt vulnerable, doubted myself and needed someone to talk to. I have tried to keep up this macho athlete image of ‘I don’t need anyone’ the truth is I do, everyone does.

If we can show vulnerability, then it opens up a bigger conversation for people who are struggling in the darkness. It is the duty of people like me, and those in the positions that we are in to be role
models.

You will feel much better after talking about your feelings and emotions.”

“No hostile song can drown your voice. The world may shake, the night may burn, your answer shapes the final turn.”

“Don’t let the unity and love we’ve seen in our country end with this campaign. When we’re together we can achieve big things…“

Thank you for your courage and for outlining this so clearly
Jude Bellingham 💚

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