Tony Vaughan
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Violence against Women and Girls
Tony Vaughan Excerpts(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)
It is a privilege to speak under your chairship, Sir Mark. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) on securing this incredibly important debate.
I am ashamed that, on average, one woman is killed by an abusive male partner or ex-partner every five days in England and Wales. This violence has to stop and we must all play our part—especially men. I want to think about this issue in relation to the attitudes of young men, as my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) has just done. I am the father of two boys and I am deeply concerned by the social media influencers and YouTubers who promote misogynistic attitudes and behaviours towards women. Algorithms push this vile material on to impressionable young minds and, as my hon. Friend just said, notions of consent to sex have been entirely distorted.
Obviously, we need to understand better the causes of misogyny but, in my view, the concept of masculinity needs to be rescued from the toxic clutches of self-interested and corrupt influencers such as Andrew Tate. The popular idea of masculinity must include the qualities of compassion, empathy, solidarity and co-operation. All too often there is a chain reaction where isolated young men become manipulated by influencers.
I also want to raise the question of women who lack the right kind of immigration status, or who do not have any status. The system currently makes it much harder for those women to leave an abusive situation, because the policy, the migrant victims of domestic abuse concession, excludes many domestic violence survivors from its protection based on immigration status. I pay tribute to the Southall Black Sisters, who have tirelessly campaigned on this issue and with whom I have worked on it.
I thank the Minister for her many years of work on this issue and ask her what the Government intend to do to level the playing field for that group of women, as well as what steps the Government are taking to educate young men about the causes and consequences of misogyny and to call it out.