Violence Against Women and Girls: Sentencing

Debate between Cherilyn Mackrory and Helen Grant

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered sentencing for violence against women and girls.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, and a great honour to open this debate on a matter that colleagues and I feel passionately about. I speak as the co-chair of the all-party group on women’s health, and as a mum who feels passionately about ensuring that we create a country in which every little girl is safe to grow up without fear of violence against her. Effective sentencing is one of the tools we can use to deter perpetrators, and it also encourages victims of violence to come forward.

Sadly, violence against women and girls is still a reality across our whole planet. Before I turn to the UK and to Devon and Cornwall—my police area—I want to put on the record some truly horrifying statistics. A Safer Cornwall presentation to Cornwall councillors in December by the domestic abuse and sexual violence co-ordinator stated that globally, one in three women and girls experiences physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.

Violence against women and girls covers a range of unacceptable and deeply distressing crimes, including domestic violence and abuse, sexual violence, child sexual abuse, stalking, so-called honour-based violence including forced marriage and female genital mutilation, gang-related violence and human trafficking. Although men and boys also suffer from many of those forms of abuse, those crimes disproportionately affect women and girls.

One in three women will experience violence by a man they know, and women suffer an average of 35 assaults before they ring the police. The most dangerous time is when a woman is trying to leave an abusive partner. Abuse can often start or increase when a woman is pregnant, leading to trauma or worse for her and her unborn child.

Statistically, women go to 10 different agencies before they get any help. Where the mother is being abused, up to 70% of those fathers or stepfathers are also abusing their children. Less than 25% of domestic abuse is reported. Fifty per cent. of all rape is carried out by husbands or male partners, and two women are killed every week by a partner or an ex-partner. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who is not here, for remembering each of those women killed and reading their names on International Women’s Day every year. That serves as a powerful and sobering reminder that women and girls still face violence, even in our neighbourhoods. That violence can affect women across all social and ethnic groups, and can leave the victim and her children with devastating scars, both physical and mental.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this really important debate. She is speaking passionately about these issues, which are close to my heart. I was a domestic violence lawyer for 23 years prior to entering politics, and I had to obtain many, many injunction orders to protect victims. Does she agree that domestic violence is abhorrent and inexcusable, as it crushes the victim’s self-confidence and self-esteem, wrecks families and ruins lives? During many incidents, children are watching, learning and being devastated.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

My hon. Friend, who has a wealth of experience on these matters, is absolutely right. That is why this is such an important debate. Although the title is “Violence Against Women and Girls”, the violence affects all children who witness it or are subjected to it.