Violence against Women and Girls

Michael Ellis Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point, particularly with regard to violence by women that is directed towards men, but that is not the purpose of this debate. There are wrinkles in that matter that I do not want to go into. However, it is important that we hear male voices in this debate and I welcome the Minister to his position.

I want to talk about what we have done already. I am very proud of the Home Secretary. That statement might not receive wide cross-party support, but we have taken some important steps, as did the previous Government. We have provided stable funding for those who counsel and support victims of violence. I know from the domestic violence support centre in Devizes that the stability of that funding is very welcome. We have put new funding into a number of initiatives. We have trialled domestic violence protection orders. I am proud that those have been trialled in my constituency. It would be wonderful if the Minister could tell us when we might hear the results of those pilots and whether the orders will be adopted nationally.

We have also introduced Clare’s law, which has been campaigned for so effectively by many Members across the House. We have started to criminalise the serious offences of forced marriage and female genital mutilation —problems that have bedevilled us for many years. We have introduced a campaign that focuses on the problem of teenage rape, which tells young girls that it is wrong. Importantly, we have reformed stalking law to help those who are stalked.

A special subject for me is online violence, abuse and bullying, particularly against women and girls. Again, there has been extraordinary cross-party support in this area, for which we are all grateful. I do not mean to scaremonger, but it seems to me that we are conducting a long-term experiment with our children, particularly our girls and young women, by exposing them so freely to the violent, degrading and sexualised content of the online world.

There are two buckets of problems that we are trying to deal with. The first is children looking at third-party content on websites. I may be classified as the Mary Whitehouse 2.0 of my generation, but I do not mind what people call me. With the support of Members from across the House, we have made extraordinarily good progress in bringing the internet service providers to a point where they will all introduce filters that provide protection on all devices in the home by the end of the year. The fundamental problem is that only four in 10 families with children currently use filters. That means that six out of 10 children live in a filter-free environment. By the end of this year, public wi-fi will not allow adult content by default. Mobile phone operators are also making tremendous progress in refreshing their adult content bars. That is a tribute to the energies of Members from all parts of the House, in particular the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) who has worked tirelessly on this matter.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

I recognise the excellent work that my hon. Friend has being doing. As well as the online issues, is she concerned about the violence that is often depicted in games for computer consoles?

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend raises a very good point. Work is going on to put age ratings on games and also on online music videos. Perhaps I am prudish, but some of the stuff that one sees in the gym these days is not what I want my children to be watching. It is fine as long as it is age rated and parents know that it is available.

On third-party content, Britain will be leading the world in the way that we protect our families. That is a tribute to the energy of this Parliament.

The second bucket of problems is often referred to as “sexting”. That is not a term that children use and it is rather an inflammatory one. It refers to user-generated content that we would all recognise if we saw it. The problem is children and young people exchanging inappropriate images, content and messages. That is a huge, growing and endemic problem and we have no idea how big it is. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children published qualitative research last year that suggested that it is almost the norm in schools for children to receive and exchange this sort of information.

There have been some extraordinarily tragic cases. Chevonea Kendall-Bryan, a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), committed suicide after being forced to perform a sex act on a boy and then pleading with him to remove the image. Records show that she had sent him a text message saying:

“How much can I handle? HONESTLY. I beg you, delete that.”

He did not delete the image and she fell to her death from a window. That is a tragic case.

Only yesterday, another colleague gave me an e-mail from a woman saying that her 12-year-old daughter had been seriously sexually assaulted in class at a very good independent school. This issue cuts across all boundaries and affects all parts of the country. The mother said that when she talked to her daughter about why alarm bells did not go off when the boy sent a text requesting sexual acts, her daughter looked at her as if she was mad and said, “Mum, All the boys send texts like that.” Boys as young as 11 and 12 are sending highly inappropriate photographs of their genitalia around networks via social media.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karl Turner]

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady, who has done a great deal of work on this issue as the chair of the all-party group on female genital mutilation.

I will make one final point. The Metropolitan police set up Project Azure to tackle the problem of female genital mutilation across the country. However, a freedom of information request showed that the team consists of just one full-time police officer and one part-time police officer. It is simply ridiculous to suggest that this is sufficient policing. I welcome the Home Secretary’s work, but we need more resources to police this most disgusting violence against women and young girls.

[Michael Ellis]

I support what the hon. Gentleman has said, and I agree that the issue of female genital mutilation is important. I appreciate the difficulty in detecting and prosecuting cases, but it is important that prosecutions follow as this is an horrific crime. On the subject of statistics, does he agree that the reason why most statistics show men as the victims of crime is that men are mostly the perpetrators of crime?

[Karl Turner]

I am not necessarily sure that the hon. Gentleman’s latter point is entirely correct. What I will say is that his initial point was absolutely correct. I know that other hon. Members wish to speak, so I will end my remarks now.