Anna
Anna Coutts-Trotter (she/her) is a survivor-advocate based on Gadigal Land. Anna experienced domestic and sexual violence as a young person. With this lived experience, the 22-year-old co-founded and is an inaugural director of The Survivor Hub (TSH). The charity provides holistic peer support to survivors of sexual assault through its MeetUps. MeetUps are located across New South Wales, Victoria and online.
Anna is extremely passionate about the self-determination of survivors. Through her personal advocacy and TSH, Anna empowers survivors to make informed decisions about their healing and is committed to building safe and respectful communities for survivors to connect, vent and ask and answer questions.
Anna is currently studying a Bachelor of Arts and Social Work. Anna also works in disability support, with young people and in aged care.
Anna recalls: “I experienced pretty much every kind of abuse you can think of. It was emotional, it was physical. It was even financial, as much as you can be financially abused as a teenager. He tried to stop me talking to my friends. I lost so many friends.” She tried to appease him. She made excuses. She loved him.
“I was so manipulated. I wasn’t myself. I lost myself.” She doesn’t want to go into further details. The court process was traumatic. Anna was in the witness box for four days, three of them under cross-examination. Her friends and her parents also gave evidence about what they had seen and heard of her boyfriend’s behaviour, and its impact on her.
Anna is recovering. Part of that recovery has been to use her experience to help others. In 2021, she and some others founded a not-for-profit group, The Survivor Hub. Through social media, a website and in-person meetings, it provides support for survivors. Anna is telling some of her story now as part of that effort. She wants people to understand that the court system re-traumatises survivors and fails to hold perpetrators to account.
“‘There’s a lot of evidence that shows people in caring professions are more targeted by abusers. People who care are vulnerable.’”