One in three women has experienced violence. According to UN figures, 316 million women vworldwide have been subjected to physical or sexual abuse by an intimate partner in the past 12 months. This year, the UN campaign also highlights digital forms of abuse. What do survivors go through, and what comes after violence?
Magi Nazer knows the nightmare of domestic abuse first-hand. She encountered it in early childhood.
“I grew up in a family marked by long-standing domestic violence. It was directed at my mother, at me and at my brother. For many years I lived with the impact of what I experienced as a child. It repeatedly led me into relationships in which there was also violence — something very common among survivors of domestic violence,” she says.
After everything she endured, Magi began searching for a way out — a path toward healthy relationships and emotional recovery.
“It’s not something that just happens overnight. And it’s incredibly important to have the right people and the right tools around us to help us overcome what we have lived through,” she shares.
Seven years ago, she founded organisations offering support to other women. To this day, she works to break the fear and stigma that remain particularly strong in smaller communities.
“I believe it is crucial to recognise what is happening to us, and that we are not trapped. We need to step out of the victim role and look at our situation through the lens of what we can do. We show the women we work with what the path forward might look like. First, they need to imagine it — to imagine that what lies ahead can be very different from anything they have known so far, and that they can choose what their life will be.”
For Magi, the key to healing trauma is love.
“What we have gone through can become a source of strength when we allow ourselves to move through it consciously — without letting fear imprison us.”
Michaela Angelova also keeps hope alive. Today she proudly calls herself a “woman survivor” — having escaped the torment and risen above the fear.
“Seven years ago, I ended a relationship marked by toxic dynamics and psychological abuse. I have a wonderful seven-year-old daughter from that relationship. I proudly present myself as a ‘woman survivor’. We were together for nearly ten years. The last year and a half was when the serious abuse began. I was pregnant when I left. But, of course, it’s very difficult to leave such a relationship. You may leave physically, but the control often continues for a long time,” Michaela explains.
For the past five years, she has been working to help others find happiness. Her mission is to restore the smile of at least one woman.
“It is truly vital not to go through this alone — through the chaos of transition. For me, it was facing my own fear, taming it, and moving forward. I kept asking myself: what does family mean to me? People around me would say, ‘A child must grow up in a family.’ And I thought — what does family really mean? It means a space of safety, love, care, attention. If that cannot be created by three people, then it can be created by two — or even one. That gave me the strength to say: I want to create a real sense of family for my daughter, as I understand it.”
Michaela believes that “women survivors” carry strength and change within them.
“We carry our scars, but we build on them. It’s not just another life — it is life. After such a relationship, once a woman frees herself and finds her true self, she discovers how colourful life really is.”
“It is the seed of hope — that my life can be different, and that I can be the one to change it,” Magi says.
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