Violence Against Women

Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone]

My Lords, I am honoured to follow the right reverend Prelate. I warmly commend his approach, and that of many of his colleagues, of taking every opportunity available, whatever the topic of debate, to reinforce the arguments for women on the Bishops’ Benches. Many of us should follow that example. If we could extend it to the Roman Catholic Church we might really be making progress. I entirely am with him on that issue.

I believe that many of these issues are deeply and profoundly cultural. We know that there was legislation to protect animals 20 years before legislation to protect children. The idea that a woman is somehow a chattel is very recent in our lives. For some years I, with my noble friend Lady Howe, was particularly involved in Brixton and Peckham, working with the Child Poverty Action Group. I remember an evening when a woman was screaming out at about one o’clock in the morning near where I lived. We went out and took her in, and had her for the night. The following morning she went home. No police came and there was no support for her. Only 20 years ago, there was the idea that culturally these issues were taboo and unacceptable, and that somehow it was the individual’s own fault.

More shockingly and more recently, we all have personal examples where we have been taken aback by the horror of the situation. A woman who worked with us for 25 years in Surrey suddenly arrived with bruises in her early 80s. Her husband suffered from pathological jealousy and, when he had his walking stick, all the way through his marriage, he would trip her up and then beat her with it—and this in a respectable Surrey village, with the shame and humiliation. That happened four years ago.

We talk about progress, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, did—and there has been great progress. The humiliation of being treated following rape by, I am sorry to say, some of the police and other forces, was almost as bad as the rape itself. Some of the agencies have been deeply unhelpful and humiliating, and have hurtfully said that women had brought it on themselves. I am delighted that the Home Secretary and the Minister for Equality, Maria Miller, have taken this seriously, with the 100 step action plan—and there is not only that but, as has been said, the work being done at DfID and the Foreign Office.

I can recall the British Council visiting a women’s group in Kenya, where the women were beaten and left in the back kitchen. When they could finally bear it no more they went back to their homes and the parents said, “You have brought shame on us—you must go back to your husband”. The British Council introduced legal rights and education policies to try to make progress.

People have talked about the subcontinent. India is a country where seven chief executives of banks are women but somehow there is still this massive group of women who have no rights and no dignity. I like practical projects. I know of a man called Vineet Nayar who has introduced 400 teachers in communities. They have the teacher only if they have 100% attendance by the girl children.

I know that I am encroaching on what the following speaker is going to discuss, but I have been very struck not only by what government can do and what charitable agencies can do—Oxfam, refuges, Women’s Aid—but also by what employers can do. My great good news at the moment is that there is a new charity, the Corporate Alliance Against Domestic Violence. What do we do at work about domestic violence? Who at work ever thinks that people are late or delayed or fearful about domestic violence spreading into the workplace? This is an organisation that reaches out to people in HR and business, which can do a huge amount of good. I hand over to the noble Baroness.