Migrant Women: Domestic Abuse

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I agree that the two are not mutually exclusive at all. One might assume that, having been forced into a marriage, those women are more vulnerable to specific types of abuse than the general population.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Joint Committee, of which I was a member, was shocked by the evidence from those women with no recourse to public funds about how perpetrators exploited their immigration status. We now know that many of these women, during the pandemic, have been forced by those same perpetrators into sex for survival. It is shocking that in Britain today we are unable to support these women, so that they do not have to resort to such extreme and deplorable activity. This is urgent. What are the Government prepared to do to support them so that they are not exposed to such huge vulnerabilities?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

If anyone is subjected to domestic violence or any other type of exploitation outlined by the noble Baroness, we will treat them first and foremost as victims. The Government have—particularly during the Covid situation, as she outlined—put quite substantial funding into ensuring that people in these vulnerable positions, and their children, get the help that they need, when they need it.