UK: Violence Against Women and Girls

Baroness Stedman-Scott Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, in the UK, for as long as I can remember, we have had a very successful practical measure that has worked to help keep women and girls safe: the provision of single-sex spaces and services—toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards and dormitories, to name just a few. When we saw a sign saying “Ladies” or “Women” on the door of a facility, we believed that we would come across only females in that space. We are often told that signs on a door do not keep men out, but the social contract did in the vast majority of cases, and women and girls felt able to raise the alarm when a male breached those boundaries.

I suspect that a lot of women have a story to tell about escaping a predatory man—a man who would not take no for an answer or was being verbally or physically abusive—by escaping to the ladies’ toilets and waiting until he had given up or gone away. Ask your female friends, mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts and cousins; you may be surprised and saddened by their stories.

The social contract is now broken. In many public buildings and areas, single-sex facilities have been replaced by mixed-sex ones, or men have been given the impression that they can go where they like and nobody will challenge them. I have heard from women who tell me exactly this: they are afraid to challenge men who should not be in a female-only space, due to the fear of how they may react—so they fake a smile, which many men take as acceptance, and get out of there as quickly as they can. In many cases, they never go back to that venue.

Of course, violence does not have to be physical. In 2021, Ofsted published a review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges. In England, it found that sexual harassment occurred

“so frequently that it has become ‘commonplace’”.

We heard today of an alleged attack on an Essex schoolgirl, which is outrageous. Some 59% of girls reported being photographed or videoed without their consent. Males having access to previously female-only spaces enables this. Do large retailers, who proudly boast of their inclusive and gender-neutral changing rooms, conduct regular sweeps for hidden cameras? Voyeurism is still a crime, so why are some organisations enabling it by replacing single-sex spaces with mixed-sex spaces? Often, it is because lobby groups have told them that it is more inclusive, when, in fact, being inclusive excludes many women and girls from taking an active part in public life.

In law, single-sex spaces and services are intended for one sex only: that is the very thing permitted by Part 7 of Schedule 3 to the Equality Act 2010. It is not possible to admit a male to a single-sex space or service for females without destroying the very basic nature of that service. Once there are males using it, however they personally regard themselves, it becomes mixed-sex. Some 88% of sexual offences occur in unisex changing rooms and unisex bathrooms, and this cannot be allowed to continue. The Government have done really good work on the social contract, but it is broken and needs fixing. We have to keep spaces single-sex.