Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, have added my name to this amendment. I wish to make just a few comments as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has covered most of what I would have liked to say about this amendment. I come to this issue with personal experience of some of the problems that I encountered as a young teenager living in my community. I like to think that we have moved on considerably in the intervening 35 years or so, but this is still a real issue. Too many young women are still exposed to this problem and are victims of it. We need to do far more to tackle it than is currently the case.

The guidance needs to be uniform and all the agencies that come into contact with potential victims need to be very clear about what they can do to support these young people who come forward needing help. I agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, on schools. There are huge concerns about schools because they follow their own principles and guidelines. In addition, we now have far more free schools, whose practice in this regard may not be in line with that of local authority schools. I would like assurance that the role of schools, which are pivotal in this regard, will be looked at very closely.

I have had conversations with survivors and some of the organisations working in the front line of forced marriages, particularly Jasvinder Sanghera of Karma Nirvana, who is very supportive. As most noble Lords who have worked in this field know, Jasvinder is herself a survivor of forced marriage and has set up the organisation to support other women in this situation. I was struck by the advice that Karma Nirvana gives girls who are forced to travel overseas to marry; namely, to conceal a spoon or fork, for example, about their person so that an alarm will be set off when they go through the airport X-ray machine. Then the airport security staff will have to take them aside to speak to them, thus giving them the opportunity to speak privately with security staff and try to enlist their support. It is sad that this advice still has to be given to young women and some young men. If everything worked effectively, presumably they would not need to resort to such tactics. Is my noble friend the Minister confident that there is consistency across the country regarding the guidance and support given by airport security staff to young girls who are being forced out of the country and who follow the advice to activate an alarm, or is it just up to individual staff to decide what support to give? The amendment is important to ensure that there is uniformity in this regard.

Young people in this situation who are accompanied by their families also need to be listened to. I know that schools contact the families of pupils who have raised this issue. If schools or other authorities contact the families of victims, it is important that the young person is taken aside and is spoken to privately to enable them to explain their situation rather than relying on family members to speak on their behalf.

[Baroness Scotland of Asthal (Lab)]

My Lords, I support both amendments in this group, not least because guidance in this area is critical. Noble Lords will know that the previous Government produced stringent guidance. However, it is not just a question of producing guidance but of implementing and monitoring it to ensure that it is effective in raising standards and offering greater protection for the victims and survivors of this most pernicious form of abuse. What assessment has been carried out of the current guidance and of any implementation strategy that the Government are minded to put in place if this amendment is accepted, which I hope the noble Lord is about to tell us he energetically supports?

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[Lord Faulks]

I do not, of course, speak for the committee, as I am only one member. This particular amendment was not considered; I can certainly take it back to the committee and ask that we consider it.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the noble and learned Lady, Baroness Scotland, for all the work she has done in setting up the Forced Marriage Unit and for her commitment and dedication over many years on this issue, as well as on domestic violence and related issues. She speaks with great authority. My concern is that we need a clear message, a deterrent, to go out to many of these communities and my fear is that some of the messages we are hearing in the debate today are not as distinct as they could be.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Hussain that education is needed and that far more should be done within all the various communities. We are talking about a range of communities; it is not just one or two. Moreover, we are seeing people coming here from the first generation, particularly from certain African countries, who are still bringing these sorts of customs with them. They do not always understand what is and is not acceptable in the United Kingdom in the 21st century.

As I said in my earlier contribution, I have some personal experience of this. I know what it is like to be threatened with being ostracised from your family and to have to leave home. No child wants to feel the pressure of being ostracised and losing contact with their family. They cannot be in touch with their extended family. For many of us, our communities and families, particularly the immediate family, are very important to us. It is our whole world. Let us make no mistake, this is a terrible thing to happen. It is not always done with violence, but certainly with intimidation.

I want something that will work. Whatever we agree to, it has to be able to prevent this happening to young women. Unfortunately, the evidence shows that although we have made a lot of progress, this is still happening to far too many young women and, as my noble friend said earlier, to boys as well. Many young people are at risk and are being affected by this. The figure must still be in the thousands and that cannot be right. We have to do something about it.

On prevention, I heard what the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, said about the voluntary organisations. The vast majority of community organisations that are working with their respective communities do not want to see the people who are in their communities being criminalised. No one would want that. The idea is that this would prevent people doing these things and entering into this sort of behaviour. It would prevent criminalisation.

[Baroness Uddin]

Does the noble Baroness accept that organisations such as the Newham Asian Women’s Project and Southall Black Sisters have a long and honourable history of campaigning against such violence? There is no way that they would want to associate themselves with what she is suggesting; that is, that they just want to see more education or protection because they want to save their communities from such allegations. They are very clear about this issue and that comes from their experience, which has been acquired from more than 30 years of protecting women.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

I accept what the noble Baroness says. I have worked in the past with Southall Black Sisters on domestic violence issues in the Turkish and Kurdish communities when I was setting up a women’s refuge for them. Indeed, I worked very closely with them; I know the work the women do and I pay tribute to them. However, I think that we need some sanctions in order to prevent this. I am sure that the same arguments were deployed in the debates on the proposal to criminalise FGM. Perhaps that is not a good example because there have been no convictions, but it is illegal. Whatever we may think about it—which is obviously for another debate—that sends out the message that FGM is wrong. If something is wrong, it should be against the law. I have listened carefully to the debate and I have thought long and hard about the issue. I have not come to this view over the past few days. It is something that I have considered for many years, and of course there needs to be far more education.

Let us look at the facts. No religion supports forced marriage and it is not a religious requirement. It is also a barrier to integration. These girls, when they behave in what is perceived to be too pro-western a fashion and perhaps are friendly with members of the opposite sex, are considered to have lax morals. The barriers then come up and the pressure starts. I go into schools and talk to girls whose families do not want them to move on into further education. They do not want them to go into further education because they then start to lose control. They think, “Oh, they will have boyfriends and get into relationships where they have sex before marriage”. That is when the oppression starts. It is a barrier to integration and goes against the opportunity for girls to reach their full potential. That is something I feel very strongly about. Moreover, it is a form of slavery and rape. I will be clear on this because that is what happens in many cases. It is about being held against your will in a marriage, which is slavery and rape, and I have no other form of words to describe it.

At the moment, many families feel that their young girls, particularly those under the age of 18, are their property. They belong to the family and the honour of the family rests on them, so the family feels that it has the right to impose its will. I shall quote what I think I might have said, and what one young girl who is a survivor and very much in favour of this legislation said to me: “I wish I had been able to say to my parents at the age of 14, ‘You can’t do this to me because it is illegal’”.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am at the cautious end of the spectrum as well. Being cautious, I noticed in the fact sheet on this issue published by the Home Office the lines:

“Victims of forced marriage, their families, and society may feel better served by a specific criminal offence. There may also be a deterrent effect”.

I read into the second sentence that that might also cover a reluctance to approach the health and other authorities simply because they are authorities.

I share the concern that has been expressed about stigmatising one’s own family and the ostracism of not just the family, but of the whole community. However, as I have said already today, I am not yet convinced that this would be answered by there being a choice between civil and criminal proceedings. Indeed, the fact sheet also makes it clear that choice is a key message of engagement. That is because there is still the dilemma of how one’s family and community will react to either type of proceedings. I then asked myself whether, conversely, it could produce the reaction of, “Well, they are civil proceedings, not pursuing the criminal route, so it is not that serious”. That worries me as well. I have said to my noble friend that I am concerned about training in this issue for the police and prosecution authorities, although that probably goes to the guidance: how will they put to those who are victims in this situation the choice they have and yet not put pressure on them?

Finally—at this point at any rate—my noble friend said that female genital mutilation is not a good example. I think that it is a good example because the criminal route has not been chosen. I am not sure what we have learnt from that; I have not picked up that we have learnt anything.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, this has been a remarkable debate and I thank my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland for introducing what is a very serious and important issue to our discussions. I want to make a point about the legislation on female genital mutilation. The reason we had to create an offence was because our law was silent on the matter of female genital mutilation at the time. We created an offence because it was the only thing we could do.

We should not be in any doubt at all that forced marriage is an offence. We need to be clear about that, and I do not think that my noble and learned friend’s—

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

My Lords, I want just to clarify a point. Perhaps I did not make myself clear, but what I meant was that in the debates around FGM at the time, it was argued that criminalisation would force the practice underground. There is an area of comparison because the point about this issue is that it is underground already.

[Baroness Thornton]

The noble Baroness makes a very fair point. What we are being presented with here, as the result of the proposal of my noble and learned friend, is a choice about how to deal with the crime of forced marriage: which is the best way to deal with it? At Second Reading I think I indicated to the Minister that the Government would have to make a good case for going down the road they are proposing. They need to have a robust justification for criminalisation. As yet, the Government have not produced the evidence that would be the justification for doing so.

My noble and learned friend has done the Committee a great favour here, because she has said that there are two ways of achieving this. This side of the House is very keen to strengthen the law on forced marriage; indeed, my right honourable friend Yvette Cooper and my honourable friend Gloria De Piero—my new boss, the shadow Equalities Minister—have both said that we are keen to do so.

I would like to ask a couple of questions, because I know that some of us are quite keen to have our lunch. In what way did the Government examine this as an alternative route to the criminalisation that is on the face of the Bill? What was the discussion? Where did it take place? In particular, was this discussed with the CPS and police and what were their views on the most effective route to take? If the Minister thinks it is appropriate, we may need to have further discussion about this.