Violence against Women and Girls

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Prosser]

What action they will take to ensure that the action plan for ending violence against women and girls is delivered consistently in schools.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, the Department for Education is committed to making the cross-government action plan on violence against women as effective as possible. The statutory guidance for sex and relationship education makes clear that schools should ensure that young people develop positive values and a moral framework that will guide their decisions, judgments and behaviour, and specifically that all young people should understand how the law applies to sexual relationships.

[Baroness Prosser]

I thank the Minister for her reply. One part of the Home Office action plan on violence against women and girls commits to work across different government agendas to increase activity to influence children’s attitudes to violence against women and girls. If that is the case, why has the Department for Education not been required to place this within the core curriculum in schools? How do the Government think that girls who are in danger will be given the self-confidence and information they need to enable them to deal with dangerous and threatening situations?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for her influential work on women’s and girls’ rights and opportunities. I entirely agree with her that girls should be equipped to deal with threatening situations and act confidently, but this provision should not be limited by a narrow curriculum requirement. The ethos of the school and the attitude of staff in all aspects of school life should play a key part, and all schools should seek to set a strong example for pupils to follow.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister what is being done following the overwhelming evidence in the British Crime Survey 2009-10 which found that 16 to 19 year-olds are more likely to be at risk of abuse? Studies indicate that in the past year one in four teenage girls have experienced abuse by their partners. What work is being done across schools and further education colleges to prevent relationship abuse and equip young people with an understanding of healthy relationships, consent and non-violence?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My noble friend raises some very important issues. The safeguarding of children in schools is an important part of the training of teachers. They should all have the skills and knowledge to identify and respond to bullying, violence and signs of abuse or neglect. As she points out, if the abuse is happening at home, that is an area where one might hope that children would acquire some moral confidence, strength and values. Teachers have a particularly challenging role if they have to identify that it is the domestic situation that is causing the problem. Of course, schools try to address all these topics within the curriculum.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, would the Minister not admit that one of the most pernicious and dangerous aspects of violence against women is female genital mutilation? When I was a Minister I became aware of this obscene business and I am afraid that I was not able to stop it as much I would have hoped. Can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to achieve some results in this area? At the moment, what I have seen of it seems rather Autolycus-like, and we know what happened to him.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Lord is right. To ensure that female genital mutilation is tackled, cross-departmental work is going on between the Home Office, the Department for Education and the Department of Health to try to identify the particular cohorts of girls who might be most at risk and to prevent this happening before it takes hold in particular cultural parts of society.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, does the Minister think that personal, social and health education in the curriculum is essential to cover the aspects that she has discussed today so eloquently? She is right that this should be covered by the ethos of the school, but surely specific issues such as child internet safety and violence in the media should be tackled head on.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I know the noble Baroness’s campaigning skills in this area and we agree that the content of PSHE is important in the school curriculum. However, parts of that are sometimes tackled under other subject areas within a school. All schools must have regard to the Secretary of State’s guidance in this area when they are teaching relationship education. Of course, sex education is already statutory but other aspects of relationships are key across all subject areas in schools.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, the Minister has just said that all schools must have due regard to guidance on sex and relationship education. Does this include independent schools, such as the Hales Exclusive Brethren schools, that fail to teach any sex and relationship education because they believe that it is completely inappropriate until the age of 20?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

As my noble friend is aware, there are different flexibilities and freedoms for some independent schools in this country but there will always be a need for schools to have regard to the best interests of their pupils.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, tomorrow is International Women’s Day. Does the Minister agree that violence against girls in and around schools is a global problem, and that in developing countries girls endure harassment and sexual violence from teachers and face considerable danger as they walk to school? Can the Minister tell the House whether DfID is working with Governments to enforce policies that combat sexual exploitation and abuse by teachers, and whether more is being done to retrain and retain female teachers?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Baroness takes this Question beyond the original remit, but I assure her that DfID is working consistently in this area to try to ensure the safeguards that she has identified in countries beyond our own.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, does the Government’s action plan address the considerable violence and bullying meted out to girls of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller origin?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The guidance will cover all pupils and all schools, so all minority groups should be within it.