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Violence against Women and Children

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Gale for once again giving us the opportunity to discuss this important issue. One appreciates that there is violence against men, sometimes perpetrated by women, but in today’s debate we are discussing violence against women. I declare an interest as chair of the Women's National Commission. Violence against women is an important part of our work, as it is consistently identified by our more than 500 partners as a priority to be addressed by governments locally and nationally. In her introduction, my noble friend indicated the complex interrelationships between the different elements that constitute violence against women, so I shall not repeat them. She also referred to a possible EU convention on violence against women, and I have a question for the noble and learned Baroness the Attorney-General. Can we be assured that there will be only one convention concerning all aspects of violence against women, not, as I have heard, one for domestic violence and one for other aspects of violence against women? Violence against women is probably the most pervasive rights violation. It is exploitation and abuse of one person by another. As my noble friend said, violence against women is a serious problem in the UK. There are 3 million women in the UK who experience violence, and many more living with the legacy of abuse experienced in the past. To put that in the context of other reasons that women unfortunately die, two women a week are killed by a current or former partner. Women are more likely to be killed by their partner than to be killed in a road accident or to die of cancer. We often forget the other people affected by violence against women. It has a devastating impact on those who experience it, their friends and families and wider society. It brings with it enormous personal, social and financial costs. We need to take the financial costs seriously and think about how we can reduce them by providing early and adequate services. Violence against women is both a cause and a consequence of gender inequality. Perpetrators are usually known men: partners, ex-partners, family members, friends or colleagues. They use power deliberately and systematically over time by psychological threat or physical force to frighten their victims and control their behaviour. Male control over women has a history. Women historically were legally the property of men—men owned women. The right of husbands to beat their wives was enshrined in law. Sexual access to women was a right of marriage. That was the case until as recently as the 1990s. Many of us campaigned vigorously to get that changed. Men still blame women for violence that they experience. That history unfortunately persists today. Research by Zero Tolerance shows that one in three teenage boys and one in five girls still thinks that, "““some women deserve to be hit””," depending on their behaviour. One in two boys and one in three girls thought that it was acceptable for a man to force a woman to have sex in certain circumstances. Those facts show the importance of teaching in schools about relationships and respect for each other, which is why the Government’s decision to make PSHE statutory is so important. It is not surprising that young people have those views. Another piece of research by Amnesty showed that about one in three people still blames women for being raped and attributes sexual violence to some aspect of women’s dress or behaviour. More than one in three thought that a woman was fully or partially responsible for being raped if she behaved in a ““flirtatious”” manner. Similarly, nearly one-third thought that a woman was fully or partially responsible for being raped if she was drunk. More than one-quarter of those surveyed said that they thought that a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was wearing ““sexy or revealing”” clothing, or had had many sexual partners. We must challenge the culture of excuses both with the public and in the courts. No longer should provocation be an acceptable defence. We must challenge the idea that women ““provoke”” violence. Nagging does not give a man the right to abuse women; infidelity does not give a man the right to beat women. Women never invite rape, whatever relationship they are in, whatever decisions they have made about drink or dress and whatever level of intimacy they have already engaged in with their attacker. Those women-blaming attitudes contribute to the appallingly low conviction rates for rape and domestic violence and to the relatively limited access for survivors. Local and national awareness-raising helps, such as the publicity launched by Rape Crisis in Scotland, which highlights that it is a myth that a woman raped while wearing revealing clothing is to blame for leading a man on, it is a myth that a woman raped after drinking is to blame for not considering her security, it is a myth that a woman raped after consenting to any level of sexual activity is to blame for having given ““mixed signals””, and it is a myth that a woman raped by a man with whom she is in a relationship has automatically given consent to sex. I raise those points because I want to ask my noble and learned friend whether there are any plans to have similar campaigns in the rest of the UK. Challenging those myths and protecting women and children is the commitment and work of voluntary sector organisations working locally and nationally to increase women's safety and to hold abusers to account for their behaviour. Women’s services have also developed a service model that acknowledges the links between violence against women and power and control. Those organisations include Rape Crisis centres, refuges, domestic violence outreach projects, services for ethnic-minority women, and support for trafficked women and women in prostitution, but it is those women's services that currently face a national funding crisis. There are 30,000 women's services in England and Wales but, despite constituting 7 per cent of registered charities, only 1.2 per cent of government funding goes to women’s NGOs. Independent women's services form a distinct and unique part of the wider voluntary and community sector, but the move to gender-neutral policies, the competitive tendering process and the failure to mainstream intelligently are contributing to their demise. The cross-government sexual violence and abuse action plan acknowledges that many of those organisations will find it difficult to access long-term core funding. Although extra funding will tackle the women's sector funding crisis, a greater focus is needed to address the impact of declining grants programmes, lack of understanding among commissioners about the women's sector and gender equality, and the serious and adverse impact of the competitive tendering process. At the same time as the cuts in the voluntary sector, the recent Maps of Gaps identifies that one in four local authorities has no specialist support services. In those cases, where are women meant to go? Women who suffer violence deserve good-quality local support services which understand a woman's complex and multiple needs and abuse. Where are those women going to find a women-only space, which is often essential? I will give what I hope, but do not believe, is an isolated example. I refer to the case of a woman who went to a Victim Support unit and was met by a man. She said that she had been raped. He sat her down and said, ““Have a cup of tea, love, sit for half an hour and then go home. You’ll be all right””. He did not understand the situation and had not been trained, but for a woman to go into a building and be faced by a man when she has just been raped is not acceptable. We must have women-only spaces. The Women’s National Commission welcomes the opportunity that it has been given to work with the Home Office on consultations to develop a national violence against women strategy, as we also welcome the increase in the number of SARCs and specialised domestic courts. We also appreciate the fact that the Government last year provided emergency resources to prevent future closures of rape crisis centres and other sexual health units. However, while at local level there are instances of good practice, these are isolated examples. Positive and progressive action is required to combat violence against women, not only to benefit the women themselves, but also to improve and redeem the lives of all those who suffer as a consequence of that violence.