Submission to the Communities, Equality and Local Government
Committee regarding the ‘Gender-based Violence, Domestic
Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Bill’
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Name:
Organisation:
Email address:
Telephone number:
Address:
These are the views of:
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Eleri Butler (Chief Executive)
Welsh Women’s Aid
TinaReece@welshwomensaid.org.uk
02920451551
Pendragon House, Caxton Place, Pentwyn, Cardiff CF23
8XE
A service provider and membership organisation
representing the views of 26 member services across Wales (Third
Sector)
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Committee Clerk
Communities, Equality and Local Government
Committee
National Assembly for Wales
Cardiff Bay, CF99 1NA
CELG.Committee@wales.gov.uk
Deadline: 05.09.14
1
Introduction
1.1
Welsh Women’s Aid (WWA) would like to thank the
Committee for the opportunity to provide evidence towards the
inquiry into the general principles of the ‘Gender-based
Violence, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Bill’
(henceforth referred to as the Bill), which we applaud as a
positive initiative on behalf of the Welsh Government.
1.2
As the lead organisation campaigning to end violence
against women (VAW) in Wales, WWA represents 26 specialist domestic
abuse services providing frontline services across Wales. Our
evidence for this inquiry focuses on the general principles,
barriers to implementation and any unintended consequences arising
from the Bill, and in particular, how this legislation will affect
survivors, service users, services, and local communities, and will
impact on our shared aim of preventing violence against
women.
2
About Welsh Women’s Aid
2.1
WWA is the lead national organisation in Wales,
providing the voice of local services, service users and survivors
to government as well as campaigning, influencing policy and
practice, and innovating to end domestic abuse and violence against
women across Wales and the UK. WWA is a membership organisation for
26 independent, specialist violence against women services in Wales
which provide a range of support, advocacy and prevention services
for women, children and families affected by domestic
abuse.
2.2
WWA also delivers essential national and local
services and projects across Wales, including the
All Wales Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence
Helpline – a 24 hour helpline for victims, concerned others and
professionals; the Children Matter Project – to improve support for children and young
people across Wales who are affected by domestic abuse; running
an Accredited Training Centre - WWA is an Agored Cymru centre, developing and
delivering training in domestic abuse accredited qualifications for
member organisations and external agencies; and delivering services
for women and children in North Wales (Wrexham and Conway) by
providing refuges, outreach and community advocacy and support for
women and children affected by domestic abuse.
3
Violence against women in Wales
1
2
3
3.1
Wales was noted as a leader in violence against women
prevention earlier this year when the UN Special Rapporteur for
Violence Against Women visited Cardiff. Despite progress that has been
made, research studies continue to find alarming and persistently
high levels of violence against women and girls in the UK in
general and in Wales:
·
In Wales in 2013/14, there were 6,325 prosecutions of
violence against women and girls offences, with a conviction rate
of 76.7%. Of these, 5,637 were cases of domestic abuse;
257 cases of rape, and 431 cases of sexual
offences.
·
Welsh Women’s Aid’s members supported 9,337
women in 2013/14, with 2,263 women entering
refuge;
·
The All Wales Domestic Abuse & Sexual Violence Helpline
(managed by Welsh Women’s Aid) supported 27,972
callers in 2013/14.
4
Welsh Women’s Aid’s original priorities
for the Bill
4
4.1
During the white paper consultation stage for the Bill, WWA
consulted extensively with our member organisations to develop the
following six priorities for the Bill:
a)
Reduction in the prevalence of all forms of violence
against women, and support for women who experience such
violence;
b)
Guaranteed access to adequate and sufficient services for
women in Wales;
c)
Compulsory initiatives in schools and other educational
settings to prevent VAW before it starts, and for supporting pupils
affected by such violence;
d)
Appropriate and timely referrals and signposting occur as a
result of improved health responses to VAW;
e)
Employers know how to help female employees affected by
VAW;
f)
All women affected by VAW have equal access to specialist
support services, regardless of their location.
5
General principles and purpose of the Bill: removal of
‘violence against women’
5.1
The original title of this legislation proposed
within the white paper consultation and other written documentation
leading up to the introduction of the Bill on July 1st,
was the ‘Ending Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and
Sexual Violence (Wales) Bill’. As domestic and sexual abuse
are only two of a number of violence against women crime types, WWA
was initially concerned that this title listed ‘domestic
abuse’ and ‘sexual violence’ separately to
‘violence against women’. This is due to the fact that
both forms of abuse are included within the internationally
accepted understanding of what constitutes ‘violence against
women’ along with other forms of violence and abuse which
disproportionately affect women, such as female genital mutilation
(FGM), forced marriage, crimes committed in the name of
‘honour’, human slavery, stalking and
harassment.
5.2
The current internationally accepted definition of
‘violence against women’ used by the United Nations,
World Health Organisation, Crown Prosecution Service, UK Government
and other international governments is:
’Any act of gender-based violence that results
in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or
suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or
arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in
private life."
This definition is particularly significant as it
firmly places violence against women as a violation of
women’s human rights.
5.3
We understand that this change in wording was taken
for unspecified legal reasons in order to ensure the Bill did not
exclude male victims. WWA never understood this to be the intension
or effect of the legislation as proposed in the white paper, but to
primarily address the fact that women suffer disproportionately
from these types of violence. Although ‘violence against
women’ has been removed from the face of the Bill, this
disproportionate suffering is still made strongly throughout the
Bill’s supporting documentation - within the Explanatory
Memorandum and guidance, but we would argue that it also needs to
be returned to the face of the Bill in the form of ‘violence
against women’ instead of ‘gender-based
violence’. WWA remains concerned by this shift in terminology
away from the internationally accepted standard as we believe
understanding and recognition of violence against women will be
lost through the change in terminology to gender-based
violence.
5.4
Although WWA can appreciate the reasoning behind the
Welsh Government’s decision, we strongly disagree with the
legal advice in this area and would offer evidence in regards to
the international examples of gender specific wording in
legislation in use in India (Protection of Women From Domestic
Violence Act, 2005), and Costa Rica (Criminalization of Violence
Against Women Law (2007) of Costa Rica).
5.5
The CPS have offered the following justification for
their continued use of the term ‘violence against
women’ in the longstanding ‘Violence Against Women and
Girls Crime Report’ issued annually:
‘In recognising these forms of violence against
women and girls, the CPS does not neglect abuse directed towards
men or perpetrated by women. Male victims will receive the same
access to protection and legal redress and the gender of the
perpetrator does not make any difference to the CPS approach to
bringing offenders to justice.’’
5.6
Along with other bodies such as the CPS, WWA also
believes that the term ‘violence against women’ does
not exclude men and boys as it refers to a crime type rather than a
particular class of victim. There is an inherent acknowledgment
that they can also be victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence
and other crime types, but that ‘violence against
women’ is a specific crime type separate and encompassing of
these individual crimes for which women’s suffering is
disproportionate. As women and girls are the
overwhelming majority of victims of these types of violence and
abuse, and 95% of perpetrators have been found to be men, the benefit of retaining this
term within the Bill far outweighs any initial confusion that may
be caused in regards to coverage.
5.7
With the loss of the term ‘violence against
women’ from the title and content of the Bill, we have
effectively lost the Bill’s association with this
international framework of understanding and evidence-base, which
is founded on an understanding that the overwhelming majority of
victims of these crime types are women and the vast majority of
perpetrators of these crime types are men. Alongside the loss of
any wide-ranging public behaviour change campaign, this is a
significant barrier to achieving the aims of the Bill.
5.8
The consequence of this is that the Bill’s
implementation will be placed at risk if local services do not name
violence against women crime types, understand the connections
between violence against women crime types, and do not deliver a
coordinated and strategic approach to preventing such crime types,
whether they be experienced by men or women. Using the term
‘gender-based violence’ widens the scope so
significantly that implementation will become confused, subject to
misinterpretation, and fail to achieve the Bill’s intended
outcomes:
·
All violence and its associated behaviours are inherently
gender-based, e.g. violence between men who are strangers or in a
group is gendered because it is associated with a particular type
of masculinity. By focussing on ‘gender-based violence’
instead of violence against women crime types, it could conceivably
be argued that violence at sports matches, in gangs or between two
men in a bar, could fall under the scope of this Bill, which we
believe is an unintended consequence. Defining ‘gender-based
violence’ in the Bill as violence, threats or harassment arising from values/beliefs
relating to sexuality will also introduce hate crime informed by
homophobia/bi-phobia into the scope of this Bill;
·
The less common or well understood forms of ‘violence
against women’ crime types such as FGM, sexual harassment and
stalking will lose priority and fail to be considered within a
violence against women prevention framework.
5.9
As outlined in the written evidence presented to this
enquiry by Professor Jackie Jones, University of the West of
England (Sep 2014), the UN Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women has criticised states that have moved
to the gender-neutral approach. Professor Jones also covers the
international examples that support returning violence against
women to the Bill and states:
The Istanbul Convention came into force on 1 August 2014.
[…] The UK signed it on 8.6.2012. Under international law,
the fact the UK has signed the Convention means that it has made a
commitment to do nothing in contravention of its terms. […]
The Convention does not exclude men (e.g., Preamble) but makes it
clear that because of the vast numbers of victims of gender-based
violence in Europe, the focus has to be women and girls. Member
states are required to ‘establish a comprehensive and
co-ordinated policy addressing all forms of violence covered by the
Istanbul Convention and offering a holistic response to violence
against women.’ […] The Convention provides one
of the legal bases for doing so.
5.10
We also support the statement submitted in written
evidence to this inquiry by our member group Safer Wales who manage
the male domestic abuse service, the Dyn Project:
‘Safer Wales would strongly recommend
against ‘gender neutral’ services, which in our
experience do not always meet the needs of either women or
men.’
5.11
The Equality Act (2010) Schedule 3, part 7, paragraphs 26 & 27 delivers
the legal protection for providing single-sex services as
‘a proportionate means of achieving a
legitimate aim’ which bears comparison with the aims of this
Bill.
5.12
WWA calls on the Welsh Government to reconsider their
amendment to the title and wording of the Bill to return to
‘Violence Against Women’ instead of ‘Gender-based
Violence, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence’ in line with
the United Nations ‘Handbook for Legislation on Violence
Against Women’. WWA would also encourage the
order of ‘he or she’ or ‘him or her’ used
within the Bill when referring to victims of the various types of
violence and abuse, to be reversed to reflect the fact that women
will be the highest proportion affected. This would be a small
technical change that would have a significant impact towards the
aims of the Bill. Thirdly, WWA would recommend that provision for
campaigning for public behaviour change also be returned to the
Bill to ensure maximum impact and effectiveness.
6
General principles and purpose of the Bill: definitions of
‘abuse’ and ‘domestic abuse’
6.1
WWA believes that the definitions used in this Bill
are extremely important to ensure a targeted and consistent
approach to addressing its aims, and are currently very broad and
missing essential elements.
6.2
Currently there are a number of definitions of
‘domestic abuse’ in use across the UK, and also within
Welsh Government including in the ‘Social Services and Well-being (Wales)
Act’ (2014), the ‘Housing (Wales) Act’(2014), ‘The Right to Be Safe
Strategy’, ‘10’000 Safer
Lives’, and within various draft documents such as
the ‘Council Tax (Chargeable Dwellings) (Amendment)
(Wales) Order’ (2014). For the Bill to achieve its
purpose of improving prevention, protection and support for victims
of these crime types, it must provide a definitive cross-portfolio
definition which adequately communicates this distinct type of
abuse.
6.3
‘Abuse’ - Although
‘psychological’ abuse is included, the definition used
within the Bill does not explicitly state the recognised definition
of ‘coercive control’ adopted by public, private and
criminal justice agencies in Wales (via the Home Office
definition). The use of the term ‘coercive control’ is
particularly important as it describes the particular pattern of
controlling behaviour that this covers, including emotional,
financial and other psychological abuse. This insidious type of
abuse is a very common feature of domestic abuse and violence
against women, but is often not identified by victims with the
seriousness it deserves. Inclusion in the Bill definition would
help to combat this. The term ‘coercive control’ is
also a feature of the Home Office definition of ‘domestic
violence’ which is widely used across services in Wales
including the police, CPS, other criminal justice services and the
voluntary and community sector. This Home Office definition will
likely soon be formalised into UK legislation with the recent
announcement of a consultation on this issue.
Coercive control must be included as its one of the
major forms of abuse we see, if it’s not clearly highlighted
our concern is women will go back to thinking that
“it’s not really abuse”.
– Newport Women’s
Aid
6.4
‘Domestic Abuse’ – This definition
is very broad and does not specifically include ‘coercive
control’, or mention of a specific age range of 16 years or
over, which are both features of the current criminal justice
definition, for monitoring purposes. WWA also believes that the
omission of an age range is due to the intention of the definition
to include all regardless of age, which is welcomed by WWA so long
as this younger age group of 16-18 year olds continue to be
represented on implementation. This is particularly important
as there is evidence of significant perpetration of domestic abuse
amongst teenage intimate partner relationships as evidence has
found that many young people view violence as a normal part of
intimate relationships. As the definition is so broad
and also includes abuse between all relatives and family members,
it conceivably also includes child abuse which has a different
statutory framework. WWA is concerned this will conflate
understanding and work to address ‘domestic abuse’ with
other separate and distinct abuse such as Protection of Vulnerable
Adults and child abuse. This conflation of all forms of abuse will
also cause problems with monitoring arrangements and significantly
increase the scope of the proposed needs
assessments.
1
2
3
4
5
6
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
This widening of the Bill’s remit to all abuse has
already been a feature of some discussions involving the Committee
and the Minister. WWA agree that it is indeed imperative that all
victims of domestic abuse and violence against women are helped and
supported appropriately at all times, but it is vital for the focus
of this Bill to remain specifically on addressing the
disproportionate suffering of those who experience violence against
women crime types, rather than looking to include all wider forms
of violence and abuse which are currently catered for in other laws
and initiatives.
6.6
As stated by Professor Jackie Jones, University of the West of
England to this inquiry, we contend that the current
‘Domestic Abuse’ definition ‘is far too wide to
become meaningful in law’.
6.7
WWA calls on the Welsh Government to realign their definition
of ‘domestic abuse’ in the Bill with the current Home
Office definition to ensure the definitions for domestic abuse used
within the Bill are specific enough to enable targeted action on
the specific issues and concerns regarding domestic abuse and
violence against women. WWA would recommend amending the definition
of ‘abuse’ on the face of the Bill (section 21.1) to
include specific mention of ‘coercive control’ to align
with other UK policy and sector practice to ensure the Bill
achieves the targeted impact desired. WWA also calls on the Welsh
Government to amend the definition of ‘domestic abuse’
within the Bill to ensure the remit of the Bill is not widened into
other forms of abuse by removing the following: ‘they live or
have lived in the same household (if the person normally lives with
the other person as a member of his or her family, or the person
might reasonably be expected to live with that other person), they
are relatives’.
7
General principles and purpose of the Bill: role of the
Advisor
7.1
WWA would strongly suggest that the proposed Advisor role
needs to be independent of government and sufficiently resourced,
in order to hold parties to account and provide strong leadership
on violence against women in Wales. Partnership working that calls
upon the expertise of the violence against women third sector is
vital if this is to be effective. Wales has been noted at European
and UK conferences as leading the way in the field of VAW; this has
been due to close partnership working between the Welsh Government
and specialists like WWA, alongside the Welsh Government taking the
necessary bold step of proposing gender-specific legislation to
tackle the forms of violence. This approach must continue for Wales
to fully achieve its aspirations in this area.
7.2
Similar Welsh models for an independent advisor role include
the proposed Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, the Older
People’s Commissioner for Wales and the Children’s
Commissioner for Wales. This is particularly important if the Welsh
Government wants violence against women to be seen as a comparable
priority to child protection, as originally proposed in the white
paper for this legislation.
7.3
There are also a significant number of international
comparisons that provide useful models for how this role could work
in practice including:
·
The State Observatory on Violence Against Women in
Spain;
·
The Special Inter-Institutional Commission for
Monitoring the Implementation of the Law against Domestic Violence
in Honduras;
·
The Inter-Agency Council on Violence against Women
and their Children in the Philippines; and
·
The National Observatory on Violence Against Women in
Denmark.
7
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
WWA calls on the Welsh Government to appoint an
independent Ending Violence Against Women Commissioner, supported
by a Commission to enable the role to carry out her/his functions.
The Commission should include administrative staff as well as
advisers and researchers with expertise in all forms of violence
against women. The functions of the Commissioner should be along
the same lines of the proposed functions of the Adviser, taking
into account our additions and recommendations above, and with the
added functions of holding the Welsh Government to
account.
8
General principles and purpose of the Bill: omission of
education and prevention
8.1
WWA has consulted with our member groups across
Wales, colleagues working across the specialist violence against
women sector in Wales and the UK, and relevant research literature
to develop a number of recommendations around approaching healthy
relationship education and domestic abuse in schools. This is seen
by the sector and experts as vital to ensuring real change in
social attitudes in order to prevent violence against women. WWA
support the evidence submitted to this enquiry by Dr Emma Reynold
of Cardiff University on this subject, along with the findings of
her recent report ‘Boys and Girls Speak Out’ as well as
that submitted by the Wales Violence Against Women Action
Group.
8.2
Our primary recommendation for the Bill is as
follows: ‘Prevent violence against women through education
and support pupils affected’. We recommend this taking place
through a wide range of compulsory initiatives in schools and other
educational settings to prevent VAW before it starts, and for
supporting pupils affected by such violence. Alongside including
education on violence against women and healthy relationships
within the compulsory Welsh Curriculum taught from a perspective of
gender equality and human rights, WWA recommends:
·
One fully-trained ‘go-to’ staff member in
each school with expertise in violence against women and girls and
the knowledge and confidence to assist pupils in seeking assistance
and information;
·
Ensuring schools regularly collect data on all forms
of violence against women and girls, including sexual harassment
and bullying;
·
Ensuring education on violence against women and
girls and healthy relationships is available to children and young
people not engaged in formal education system or
‘NEETS’;
·
Appointing a violence against women and girls
champion amongst school governors and the student
council;
·
Ensuring that Estyn inspects on school responses to
violence against women and girls;
·
Ensuring provision of comprehensive violence against
women and girls and healthy relationships training for all related
professionals.
8.3
WWA were disappointed to learn that the education and
prevention aspects of the Bill had been omitted when introduced due
to separate efforts to include lessons within the curriculum.
Although reassurances have now been received by the Welsh
Government that guidance on this area will now be returned to the
Bill in stages 2 and 3, WWA would like to reiterate the importance
of this being a comprehensive whole school approach to preventing
and addressing violence against women, as outlined in point 7.2
above.
8.4
WWA calls on the Welsh Government to ensure that a
whole school approach as outlined in section 7.2 above is included
in any guidance under section 12 of the Bill, alongside any
additions to the Welsh curriculum and that this guidance is
rigorously implemented and enforced to ensure compliance within
100% of schools across Wales.
9
General principles and purpose of the Bill: omission of
employer workplace policies
9.1
WWA strongly supports a duty on the public sector to
produce workplace policies on domestic abuse and violence against
women across Wales as outlined in the original consultation on this
legislation, and was disappointed by the eventual omission of this
from the Bill.
9.2
Whilst in the UK the key projects to have been
undertaken around violence against women in the workplace have been
limited to domestic abuse policies, there are international
examples that point towards the importance of developing a
‘whole-workplace approach’ to tackling violence against
women, including through preventative measures and encouraging men
within workplaces to challenge violence-supporting attitudes and
behaviours. A good example comes from Australia, where
Women’s Health Victoria’s ‘Working Together
Against Violence’ project used workplaces as a setting for
the primary prevention of violence against women. The project aimed to strengthen
the organisational capacity of a male dominated workplace to
promote gender equality and non-violent norms. The project
comprised two phases spanning four years, from 2007 to
2011.
9.3
The Equality and Human Rights Commission recently
updated their guidance on workplace policies to include all forms
violence against women and they have also worked in
partnership with the Chartered Institute of Professional
Development to develop guidance for the private sector.
9.4
WWA calls on the Welsh Government to amend the Bill
to include a ‘whole-workplace approach’ to violence
against women, and at the minimum a duty on public sector employers
in Wales to develop a workplace policy specific to domestic abuse
and violence against women.
10
Unintended consequences and financial implications: increased
pressure on services
10.1
Recent Wales figures on the cost of just domestic
abuse on the Welsh economy was a total of £826.4 million,
which included £303.5m (health care, criminal justice costs,
social service, housing, legal and economic) and £522.9m
(human and emotional costs).
10.2
If, as hoped, victim reporting of violence against
women is also raised by the Bill as it progresses through the
National Assembly, then pressure on services is set to become ever
more acute in the coming years. Currently it is our understanding
that no funds dedicated to the Bill will go towards frontline
services such as women’s refuge or community ‘floating
support’.
10.3
The violence against women sector has suffered from
cuts along with other public services in recent years. This has
occurred alongside a significant year-on-year increase in demand
for our member’s services. The sector as a whole is very
dependent on secure long-term funding from Welsh Government to
protect services for women and children fleeing domestic abuse and
violence. In a CutsWatch survey of Welsh Women’s Aid member
groups between April and December 2013 the following information
about cuts to funding for services was gathered which is
representative of other feedback we have received:
·
Three services had sustained cuts to Supporting
People funding of between 8% and 20%, adding up to over
£100,000. A further three had cuts to Supporting People
funding of between 4% and 17%, totalling just over £28,000.
One service also referred to an imminent cut to Tenancy Support
funding;
·
For children and young people’s services in the
sector, services were clear about funding difficulties. A service
stated that in terms of funding for children and young
people’s services ‘we do not yet know if we
have continued funding for this beyond March 2014’. One
response highlighted the issue that grant funders think children
and young people’s services are statutory therefore there are
difficulties finding funding. Other respondents said ‘funding
at lowest level for many years’ and ‘funding for
services to support children and young people is inadequate if
non-existent’ as well as stating that funding for children
and young people’s preventative work from Welsh
Government is ‘very limited’.
10.4
Therefore, increasing reporting as a result of such
planned aspects of the Bill as ‘Ask and Act’ and public
sector training will undoubtedly lead to increased pressure on
these services without doing anything to address the geographical
gaps in provision of services. Provision should be made within the
Bill to address any increase in reporting to ensure victims and
specialist services are protected and supported to allow a holistic
approach to implementation.
10.5
Our member groups have stated that they are already
under significant pressure and are concerned by an increase in
demand without more investment to secure sufficient service levels
across Wales:
‘We feel this would result in adding further strain to
an already busy service [in] both refuge and drop in
/community.’
– CAHA Women’s Aid
‘Refuge is a resource that is already oversubscribed, on
average we get about 3 request[s] for each room we advertise and
that’s on a slow day – for example today we had 6
requests for a room (which would accommodate one women and 3
children) including women accessing our drop in
service.’
– Newport Women’s Aid
10.6
WWA calls on the Welsh Government to consider
resourcing an increased demand for violence against women services
through funding provision under the Bill to ensure that the
considerable expertise of the specialist violence against women
sector is protected and strengthened further for the future and
ensure a holistic approach to addressing this issue.
11
Comments on subordinate legislation
11.1
WWA are concerned that many of the recommendations
made during the White Paper consultation have not been explicitly
included in the Bill, and therefore run the risk of not be covered
appropriately in subordinate legislation.
11.2
With regard to what is present, such as the national
and local strategies, we are concerned that the balance between
primary and secondary legislation is not appropriate, as it has the
danger of leading to variation of service provision as well as lack
of scrutiny in the commissioning process.