Submission to
the Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee regarding
the ‘Gender-based Violence, Domestic Abuse and Sexual
Violence (Wales) Bill’
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;
theChildren
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.