Marianne Hester
- Professor of Gender, Violence and International Policy - MA, PhD
- Centre for Gender and Violence Research
- Tel: +44 (0)117 9546626
- Email: Marianne.Hester@bristol.ac.uk
Personal profile
Professor Marianne Hester (MA Oxon, PhD Leeds) has been appointed as NSPCC Professor of Child Sexual Exploitation. She is seconded half-time for three years to lead research activity within Fresh Start, a new and innovative centre established by the NSPCC to combine and develop training, practice and research on sexual abuse and exploitation of children and young people.
She is the Head of the Centre for Gender and Violence Research at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, and Patron of South Tyneside Women's Aid.
Since 1980 she has carried out research into many aspects of violence against women and children, including comparative research on child contact and domestic violence in Denmark and the UK, and comparing domestic violence in China and the UK. Her current work includes a comparative study of "young peoples’ experiences and perceptions of violence in the family" in the UK and China in conjunction with Professors He Junping and Tian Lan at the China Political Science and Law University Beijing; longitudinal study of domestic violence and the criminal justice system; research on "early intervention with domestic violence perpetrators"; and the first study in the UK "comparing domestic violence in same sex and heterosexual relationships" in conjunction with Dr Catherine Donovan, University of Sunderland.
She was for a long period involved in the Rape Crisis Movement in the UK and has worked in close collaboration with organisations such as Women's Aid that provide services to women and children experiencing domestic violence. She is a member of the Centre for East Asian Studies. She also teaches on the Masters Programme in Public Policy.