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Violence Against Women

I am glad that I gave way to the hon. and learned Lady, because I agree with her completely, but I want to move on and make a lot of other points. I sensed that even in my time in the police—I left at Christmas 1969—attitudes were beginning to change. There was a sense in which it was simply not acceptable for women to be beaten up and abused by men, even within the family. When I came to the House in 1987, I was put on the Home Affairs Committee, in my first Parliament, as I said in an intervention on the right hon. Member for Walsall, South. Under the chairmanship of Sir John Wheeler, we produced a detailed report on domestic violence. Many of our recommendations became policy, and I think that we changed opinion, even among parliamentarians, on the fact that the subject needed greater focus and impetus from Government. I particularly remember visiting places of safety, refuges. The hon. and learned Lady referred to the fact that such places are now a central pillar of policy; I welcome that. We must restate strongly this afternoon that violence against women in all its forms is unacceptable, and there can be no possible excuse. It is a very grave violation of human rights, and cultural relativism should not be invoked to justify the actions of some men. The Council of Europe as a whole dedicated three years, from 2006 to 2008, to a campaign aimed at combating violence against women across all 47 member countries. The campaign highlighted the need to protect victims, to prosecute offenders and to prevent violence. There is even a handbook for parliamentarians, a key feature of which is to remind parliamentarians in all countries that all women living within their territories should have access to law, should have relevant victim protection and should have rehabilitation facilities available to them. In both the committee on equal opportunities for women and men and the migration committee, work on that issue is ongoing. It is never off the agenda. One report is followed by another. We have just completed a report, adopted by the Assembly in September, entitled "Migrant women: at particular risk from domestic violence". After the part-session next week in Strasbourg, I expect to begin a report on the rights of women migrant workers. I shall come to that in a moment. The right hon. Member for Walsall, South, is right to say that although many recommendations are made, many reports have been written and many great ideas have been promulgated, not all of them have been taken up with the enthusiasm one would have liked. However, I would caution him that many aspects of the subject have been taken up by the Government. When we keep pushing at the door, attitudes begin to change. The focus for the migration committee, understandably, is on migrant women and discrimination on grounds of gender and origin. Half of migrants are women, and they are at particular risk of violence. They are often confronted with language barriers, insecurity of status, family pressures, religious and cultural attitudes, and isolation with limited access to help. Psychological violence and exploitation are also often encountered in the workplace. Women are given jobs of drudgery. There is also sexual exploitation; and, of course, there is sexual human trafficking, to which others have referred. According to the latest figure available to our committee, the industry of trafficking women for sexual exploitation is currently worth £32 billion across the whole of Europe; that includes not only the EU, but eastern European countries outside it. That is a shocking figure. It shows the scale of what confronts us. Other forms of violence against migrant women include so-called honour crimes, female genital mutilation—the Government rightly legislated on that recently—forced marriages, and rape, including rape within families and communities. The Parliamentary Assembly migration committee has long called for a Council of Europe convention on violence against women. We need to embrace action on all the aspects that I mentioned, and I am glad that there is now general agreement that the convention should be taken forward. I hope that the Government will be extremely active, through the CDMG—the intergovernmental migration committee—in making that a reality. As I said, the needs of migrant women are especially important. We should not underestimate the real gravity of the problem. Migrant women often originate from countries where there is a strong patriarchal family structure, in which cultural and religious conventions often treat women and girls adversely. Women are often resigned to violence and abuse, especially if it is the tradition in their host country. Other features of the experiences of migrant women can have a very negative impact. Divorce and separation can result in the women having no status. The bad experience of migration itself, which puts families under pressure, especially if they are in an irregular situation, can be the cause of violence against the woman in the home. Women feel a great sense of shame, often based on tradition, when it comes to reporting what has happened to them. Their rights are seldom understood. Women with no individual migrant status are frightened to seek help. As regards people in migrant and multi-ethnic communities, even in our own country, talk of prevention is futile unless efforts are made to integrate those women into their communities. That is a route towards inclusion, which reduces isolation and the risk of violence. Migrant women may have young children who were born in the host country who have no status themselves, and who suffer violence. Migrants with irregular status live constantly in fear of deportation. I am glad that the convention on trafficking, which the Government now enthusiastically support, is firmly understood. I say to the right hon. Member for Walsall, South, that that is an example of the Council of Europe at work. I remember that three, or three and a half, years ago we pushed hard for that convention. The original response, not only from the Government but from our parties and the body politic, was, "Ah, yes, but this will just attract more of them to this country"—all the usual responses. The perceived wisdom now is that these women deserve help and support. We continue to change attitudes. Lack of access to interpretation or language training is also a frequent difficulty. On women who are concerned or frightened about reporting because of their status, our understanding is that the United Kingdom domestic violence rule of 2002 has enabled abused women to stay here in their own right on production of evidence. It is most important that such measures be supported, approved and adopted, and that we see the consolidation of such measures in other countries. Women need empowerment. We need to consolidate their role in society. I could give many examples. When travelling in Europe on Parliamentary Assembly business, I have been in countries where one can sense that the women are treated very badly and have little status. It is different in other places. I was in Azerbaijan in May visiting refugees, although they are in-country displaced people from Nagorno-Karabakh. I was allowed to see the matriarch there; she was a powerful woman. Much of the problem is cultural, but there is much that we could do in taking a lead. To make progress will require a significant improvement in the status of migrant women. Eventually, we will have to recognise that women need a status independent of their spouse. I accept that these are challenging concepts, but I believe that we must take primarily a human rights approach to change. That is the key to political action and the vehicle to overcoming cultural and religious barriers. Human rights primacy means that violence is not acceptable in any way. The rights of the perpetrator must never supersede the rights of women to protection from violence, but we know of instances, particularly in other countries, where that has not always been the case. We can never overstress the importance of transnational dialogue and the development and implementation of international instruments and conventions. I accept that that may be a subject for another day, but there is considerable room for improvement. Legal instruments must translate into a guarantee of protected rights for women. We must make more of our membership of CEDAW. As a country, we should take a bigger role and a bigger lead in the various UN and Council of Europe committees. We have made much progress in this country, and I sense that our experience could be invaluable to women in other countries. I return to the generality of the subject. Much progress has been made in the past 40 or 50 years, but there is much more to do. Yes, of course we need a strong criminal justice system. However, attitudinal change is not yet complete. In particular, among the younger generation, there does not seem to be the attitude that we want across that whole generation. That aspect, too, was referred to earlier. It is not acceptable to abuse or exploit women with impunity. One of my colleagues on the Council of Europe, Mr. Mendes Bota from Portugal, will chair the equal opportunities committee, and I hope to become chairman of the migration committee next week, when all the chairmanships change. He made a telling point. He said that the trouble may be that all our efforts to deal with the problem of violence against women are reactive—that everything we do is largely reactive. The priority should be education. He said that, at the pre-primary level, in many elements of society there is no mutual respect. We need to change that attitude, culture and behaviour and focus on what is socially responsible and acceptable. If we can resolve the issue for future generations through attitudinal change, there will be a huge prize, in terms of health, family breakdown figures and social and economic costs. Furthermore, more men need to be involved in pursuing the subject. I was delighted to see that at one point there were five men participating in this debate. There are still four of us, and I am not including the Whip and you, Mr. Benton, in the Chair. We need genuine equality—not equality as an end in itself, but equality that reflects a society that is based entirely on mutual respect.