Crime: Domestic Violence

Baroness Nye Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend is right that this is a terrible practice, which we seek to counter both in the United Kingdom and overseas. We are funding civil society organisations which are working to end the practice in Ethiopia and Kenya, and my honourable friend Lynne Featherstone is developing a major new programme to address FGM. We know that work with communities, as my noble friend says, including affected women and girls is key to ending the practice. Organisations such as AWEPA, which engage parliamentarians, are crucial in bringing about the change that we all need to see.

[Baroness Nye]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that when one in two boys and one in three girls in the UK think that there are some circumstances when it is okay to hit a woman, or to force a woman to have sex, it is essential that sex and relationship education is made statutory in our schools? That must include free schools and academies.

[Baroness Northover]

It is clearly unacceptable when children in our society hold these points of view, and I know that it is prevalent. The noble Baroness will be pleased to hear that today we are putting increased effort into a teenage relationship abuse campaign, because it is extremely important that we get across to teenagers—girls as well as boys—that this is unacceptable and what actually constitutes abuse so that it does not then lead on into domestic violence. That campaign will need to be targeted in every possible place.