Violence Against Women

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I join all noble Lords in thanking my noble friend for opening this important short debate. I also thank all noble Lords who have participated. The wealth and quality of contributions demonstrates that ending violence against women and girls is an issue which resonates with us all. We must continue to work together with the voluntary sector, the police, local authorities and others to turn that vision into a reality. I hope that I will be able to answer some of the questions through my contribution and, of course, I will gather up towards the end what I feel I have missed out.

The Government take the issue of domestic violence very seriously. We believe that no woman should have to live in fear. No one should think that it is acceptable to be violent. No child should ever grow up in a home where violence is an everyday occurrence. As has been said, one in four women in the UK has been affected by domestic violence. According to a UN report, at least one in three women globally says that she has been beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime.

The Government are developing a number of events to support and promote this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This will be an opportunity both to mark what has already been achieved and to build a profile of the existing and emerging work that we are trying to carry out to tackle what is often a hidden issue. This is all part of ongoing work. As noble Lords are aware, on 25 November last year, the Government published Call to End Violence against Women and Girls, which outlined four guiding principles: first, to prevent violence happening in the first place by challenging the attitudes and behaviours that foster it and to intervene early where possible to prevent it; secondly, to provide adequate levels of support where violence occurs; thirdly, to work in partnership to obtain the best outcome for victims and their families; and fourthly, to take action to reduce the risk to women and girls who are victims of these crimes and to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice.

A detailed range of supporting actions was published on 8 March this year. We have protected more than £28 million of Home Office funding until 2015 for specialist services to tackle violence against women and girls. This funding is going to support independent domestic violence advisers, independent sexual violence advisers and multiagency risk assessment conference co-ordinators, posts which are vital to support victims of domestic and sexual violence and abuse. Other vital services are also being funded, such as £900,000 of Home Office funding per year for providing support to national helplines, including the stalking helpline. This funding is in addition to the Ministry of Justice funding of up to £3.5 million per year for up to three years to rape crisis centres. Last week, the Home Secretary announced a £1.2 million programme over the next three years for services to support girls under 18 suffering rape and sexual abuse.

The Home Office is also running a media campaign to challenge attitudes among some teenage boys and girls and to send out a clear message that any abuse in relationships is unacceptable. Central government funding is one aspect, but we know that many organisations also rely on funding from local authorities. Local authorities also have to make some tough spending decisions, but we made sure that protecting vulnerable people, including victims of domestic violence, was a priority in the spending review. The Supporting People programme will give local authorities 99p this year for every £1 they had last year, so we take the view that there is no excuse for making cuts to these essential services.

We are working to change attitudes towards women. Earlier this month, we launched a campaign on social media and online channels to help stop teenagers becoming victims or perpetrators of abuse. The campaign shows that abuse is unacceptable, helps young people to recognise abusive behaviour and aims to empower them to challenge that behaviour. We are also providing training for professionals and front-line staff in areas such as the NHS to spot the early warning signs of and risk factors for domestic and sexual violence.

We are also piloting new powers for the police with domestic violence protection orders in three police force areas: Greater Manchester, West Mercia and Wiltshire. DVPs prevent the perpetrator returning to a residence or having contact with a victim for up to 28 days, for example, which gives the victim immediate protection and allows her breathing space to consider her options. We have directed that local areas and agencies should undertake a domestic homicide review after every domestic violent death to make sure that the right lessons are learnt to help stop future homicides and violence. The Government want constantly to look at new ways of protecting victims and preventing tragic incidents happening. That is why we recently published a consultation on a domestic violence disclosure scheme to seek views on whether to introduce a scheme for disclosing information about an individual’s history of domestic violence to a new partner.

We are very clear that our obligations to help women who are being abused do not stop at our borders so, for the first time, our strategy to tackle violence against women and girls also includes the innovative work we are doing internationally on this global problem. In addition to contributing £10 million of core funding to UN Women and £3.2 million to its women, peace and security programme, DfID’s business plan for 2011-15 now identifies violence against women and girls as a priority and commits DfID to pilot new approaches to prevent it. The UK national action plan commits DfID to helping 10 million women access justice through the courts, the police and legal assistance. As many as 25 DfID country officers are now pushing forward with integrating violence against women and girls programmes into their operational plans. These include interventions designed to respond to violence once it has happened as well as programmes designed to prevent violence through long-term attitude and behavioural change.

For example, in Somalia DfID is funding training for police officers and legal officials in dealing with sexual violence cases, as well as funding sexual assault referral centres which enable women to access free medical care, counselling and legal advice. Through the Social Inclusion Research Fund in Nepal, DfID has also funded a wide range of work tackling violence against women and girls, including a one-year action research project on sexual violence in schools. Lynne Featherstone MP, the Home Office Minister with responsibility for equality, visited Nepal from 12 to 15 June this year, partly because of these efforts to address widespread violations of women’s rights. The Minister met a broad range of people, including the former Prime Minister, Madhav Kumar Nepal. Two weeks ago I met the Italian Minister for Women and Equality. We had an incredibly constructive meeting, and the Minister also met the Home Secretary. We found that we are all committed to ensuring that we recognise our shared commonalities in wanting to tackle this very serious issue. I am glad that our European partners are working closely with what we are doing so that we have a consistent approach on how to tackle this really despicable form of violence. The UK is responding to the urgent need to reduce the impact of conflict on women and girls and to tackle sexual violence in conflict through its national action plan on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.

Before I conclude, I will respond to some of the points raised by noble Lords. My noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece asked about the Council of Europe convention on domestic violence. The Government are strongly committed to combating violence against women and promoting women’s rights more broadly. The Home Secretary has commissioned a cross-Whitehall consultation and has identified that legislative reform in various complex policy areas will be necessary if the UK is to sign and ratify the convention. However, I reassure my noble friend and other noble Lords that the Home Office is continuing to work robustly with interested government departments to identify obstacles in the way of signature and ratification so that they can be addressed. My noble friend Lord Boswell was absolutely right to say that we take these issues very seriously, so we want to make sure that what we are signing up to will deliver exactly what it says on the can. We are working hard with our partners, but I reassure my noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece because I know she feels passionate about this, that we are making sure that when we sign up we will have something that we can deliver on.

My noble friend also mentioned Afghanistan, and I know that she and I share a common theme on this. The incident she mentioned was despicable and has to be openly condemned, but I assure her that our work in Afghanistan is quite robust and productive. Through our multi-donor Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, which helps to pay the salaries of civil servants, we have been able to pay 48,000 women teachers. That has aided 2 million girls to get to school. We know that progress looks as if it is slow, but at least it is in the right direction. I suspect that pressure from the UK and other partners will ensure that that progress continues.

I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Howells of St Davids—I call her my noble friend because I think she is—on her eloquent and thoughtful contribution. She set out graphically exactly what the problems are. We all recognise that there has to be a culture change and an attitudinal change. Like her, I believe that this is not about party-political point-scoring, but about us working collectively to ensure that we make progress on this issue. I hope that she will be reassured by my own contribution that the Government are taking some very serious steps towards those changes.

Of course I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, that women absolutely have to feel safe. They have to be confident that we as a Government are taking account of this issue. We have no control over the global economic condition, and she knows that we have to work against the backdrop of our own national deficit that needs to be addressed. But that does not mean that we will cut back on making sure that vulnerable people—women suffering from domestic violence—are protected. We take these issues seriously and, as I have said, we have dedicated resource funding for particular funding for particular projects to ensure that women will be protected and will have recourse.

The noble Baroness asked whether the definition of domestic violence has been changed. I can reassure her that it has not. Women will still have recourse to legal aid if they are the victims of domestic violence. We will have a long and full debate on the legal aid Bill so I do not want to take up my time discussing that here, although I am sure that we will have plenty to say to each other in the Chamber on that one.

The noble Baroness also asked about stalking. Yesterday my honourable friend Lynne Featherstone launched in Manchester a consultation on stalking. We take this issue very seriously.

I have gone over my time. If there is anything that I have not mentioned or have not responded to, I undertake to write to noble Lords. I thank my noble friend for tabling this Question because it is a very important subject.