Support for Black Victims of Domestic Abuse

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow a moving contribution by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott); she shared some of her lived experience that will stay with us and motivate us to go further and do more. I thank her for sharing her contribution.

As others have done, I thank the Petitions Committee for securing this incredibly important debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare), who opened the debate with an incredibly powerful contribution in which she made several serious points about practical measures that could, and should, be adopted almost immediately. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips); given her tireless work in this area, she would certainly be here were it not for a sudden family bereavement. I am sure all Members join me in sending her our condolences. I spoke to her ahead of the debate, and she spoke incredibly highly of Sistah Space.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead said, Valerie Forde was a mother, a daughter and a black woman. Six weeks before being brutally killed, Valerie reported her ex-partner’s threats to her life to the police. The threat was deprioritised and reported as a threat to property rather than to her life. On 31 March, Valerie and her baby daughter were killed at the hands of her ex-partner. The eighth anniversary of this tragic, heartbreaking loss is this week.

This debate is about support and protection for black women experiencing domestic abuse. At the moment, society is failing victims. We have heard many shaming facts and the harrowing lived experience of survivors. To paint a brief, troubling landscape, and to echo the words of others, we know there are numerous intersecting inequalities that black and minoritised women face that result in a higher risk of experiencing violence against women and girls. Black women face significantly higher barriers to reporting abuse and accessing protection, refuge and support. Research shows that black and migrant women experience higher rates of domestic-abuse-related homicide, and 50% of victims experience abuse from multiple perpetrators.

Others have shared these statistics, but at the height of the covid pandemic, when domestic abuse services were inundated with calls for help, the charity Refuge found black women were 14% less likely to be referred to their services for support by police than white survivors of domestic abuse. That is despite black women being 3% more likely to report abuse to the police than their white counterparts. Black and minoritised women are more likely to report inappropriate professional responses from statutory and voluntary agencies, including responses based on cultural, ethnic and religious stereotypes. A 2020 report from the organisation Imkaan said of the police:

“Black Caribbean women in particular said the responses were sluggish and stereotypically cast them as aggressive rather than ‘victims that needed help.’”

There are things that we can and must do, including, as Valerie’s law asks, improving the training of institutions and professionals who work with survivors of domestic and sexual abuse with African and Caribbean heritage. The Labour party released the “Ending Violence Against Women and Girls” Green Paper last year, which stated that we would ensure

“Training on the experiences of violence and abuse faced by Black, Asian, minority ethnic, LGBT+, disabled and migrant women. Labour would ensure that police and RASSO units training recognises the intersectionality of prejudices and discrimination, and additional barriers to accessing support and protection, that contributes to these victim’s experiences of violence against women and girls.”

All victims of domestic abuse or sexual violence need to be protected and supported. Institutions whose job it is to provide that care, support and protection need to be trained in such a way that they deliver it, taking into account the specific needs and experiences of all groups. It is as simple as that.

We need processes in place to ensure that victims and survivors are protected from the conscious or unconscious bias that we know exists in society. We must ensure a system that provides access to support and protection; victims and survivors cannot carry that burden themselves. Victims should not have to navigate ignorance, cultural bias or overt racism to access basic rights. The responsibility for safety must lie with those who are meant to protect us: those in the criminal justice system. Effective cultural competency training can support that.

In response to the petition, the Government have claimed that it is not necessary to mandate training because

“Current training on domestic abuse should include recognising the specific needs of victims due to their ethnicity or cultural background”,

but the lived experiences of women and girls are telling us otherwise. It is imperative that we listen to Sistah Space—I am so pleased that its representatives have been able to join us—and all supporters of Valerie’s law on what needs to change. We support the call to make cultural competency training mandatory for Government-run institutions involved in supporting African and Caribbean-heritage survivors of domestic and sexual abuse.

Valerie’s law and Sistah Space have driven today’s debate, but there is much more to be done to better protect and support black women who suffer domestic and sexual abuse. To truly protect and support all women, we must ensure we tackle the significantly higher barriers to accessing refuge and support that black women face. We must support and expand the by and for services available that provide for black and minoritised women’s specific experiences and needs. Importantly, by and for expert services are trusted by the women they support, due to their understanding of intersectionality. Minoritised women’s experiences of abuse and violence often intersect with race, immigration status, age and poverty. Those multiple discriminations often mean that the trauma experienced by victims is complex, and only specialist practitioners with experience and understanding can provide the right support. However, over the past decade, 50% of such specialist refuges have been forced to close, or have been taken over by a larger provider due to a lack of funding. According to 2018 data, there are fewer than 30 specialist by and for black and minoritised women’s refuges left in the whole of the UK.

As others have said, the situation is even more perilous for victims with no recourse to public funds. Just 5% of refuge spaces listed in 2019 were accessible to women with “no recourse to public funds” status. If a victim cannot access safety and support, what happens then? Black and minoritised survivors, who are disproportionately unable to access refuge, sometimes end up having to make the unthinkable choice between homelessness and remaining with their abuser. They also might be forced into exploitative and unsafe private shared housing, or sofa surfing—dangerous options that leave them vulnerable to repeat victimisation. We must ensure ring-fenced sustainable funding for by and for specialist providers. The Labour party’s violence against women and girls green paper commits to that, and so should the Government.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead said, we need to collect more vital data. Statistics and data that allow us to fully investigate and comprehend the relationship between protected characteristics and violence against women and girls are rare. The Femicide Census, which documents the women killed by men each year, tells us that during the period from 2008 to 2018, in 79% of cases in which a woman was murdered by a man, the ethnicity of the victim was not recorded. Also, while the Office for National Statistics provides an analysis of those involved in homicide offences by ethnic appearance, that data is not broken down by gender.

The Femicide Census reports that the lack of meaningful, verified data on ethnicity is an ongoing problem. It hinders proper research and our understanding of risk factors, barriers to support, and the need for specialist services. It states:

“The failure to record and publicise demographic data can also feed stereotypes, prejudice and assumptions. Media tends to over focus on the details of violence against women in certain communities and this in turn both feeds and reflects the existing prejudices and racism across UK society.”

The fact of the matter is that we count what we care about. We must gather better data to fully see and tackle the problem, so that we can truly protect all women.

Before closing, I thank Members for taking part, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), who said that every day we fail to step in and recognise that a woman needs help is a day we leave them at the mercy of their abuser. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) said that the failure to recognise bruises due to the lack of cultural competency was contributing to the failure to fully support women. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) spoke of how Valerie and her daughter lived and were very much loved.

The current failings are clear, and we know that there are changes that we can make to better protect and support black and minoritised victims of domestic abuse. We can save lives, and I urge the Government to act with the urgency that the situation demands.