APPENDIX 13
Memorandum submitted by End Violence Against
Women
End Violence Against Women (EVAW) is an unprecedented
coalition representing 7 million individuals and organisations
across the UK including the Women's National Commission, Amnesty
International, Rape Crisis, Women's Aid, Fawcett, the Women's
Institute and the TUC.
We are calling for the Government and public
bodies to take a more strategic approach to addressing all forms
of violence against women. Indeed, as a signatory to the UK Beijing
Platform for Action, the UK is required to take "integrated
measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women."
1. We welcome the Committee's inquiry into
the effectiveness of Government action on domestic violence (encompassing
forced marriage and "honour" killings), however we submit
that the inquiry should be broadened to inquire into the effectiveness
of Government action on all forms of violence against women. In
addition to domestic violence, forced marriage and "honour"
killings, this includes rape and sexual violence, female genital
mutilation, sexual harassment, other "honour" crimes,
forced prostitution, trafficking for sexual exploitation, sexual
harassment and stalking.
The following statistics give an indication
of the scale of the problem;
— Almost half of women in England and
Wales experience domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking
in their lifetime[28].
— Up to 85% of rapes are never reported
to the police and the conviction rate for reported cases of rape
is less than 6%[29].
— It is estimated that around 7000
girls in the UK are at risk of female genital mutilation[30].
— One third of respondents to a survey
for Amnesty International said that a woman is at least partially
responsible for rape if she had been drinking, or because of what
she was wearing.
— An ICM poll for EVAW found that 40%
of 16-20 year olds know girls who have been coerced/pressurised
to have sex by a boyfriend.
2. The consequence of focusing on specific
forms of violence is that the commonalities and connections between
all forms of violence against women are lost such as;
— Longstanding myths and stereotypes
that serve to justify or excuse the abuse.
— The dynamics of power and control
underlying the abuse.
— That violence against women is a
mechanism for keeping women unequal—it is both a cause and
consequence of inequality.
— High levels of under-reporting.
— The failure of the criminal justice
system to respond to violence—for example extremely low
conviction rates for all forms of violence.
— The long-term social, psychological
and economic consequences for victims.
— The extent of repeat victimisation.
— The historic failure by the state
to seriously being preventing violence in the first place eg by
challenging attitudes that tolerate violence.
The result is ineffective public policy responses
to all forms of violence against women and this is extremely costly—both
to individuals and the public purse. For example, the Government's
focus on domestic violence rather than violence against women
more broadly has meant that there is now a crisis in funding of
sexual violence services. There are only 36 rape crisis centres
in England, none in Wales, and many more are threatened with closure
for lack of funding.
The Home Office has now merged its domestic
violence and sexual violence teams into a de-gendered Inter Personal
Violence Unit which fails to recognise that violence against women
is fundamentally an issue of gender inequality.
3. We therefore request that the HAC broadens
this inquiry out to violence against women, or that it commits
to carrying out such an inquiry in the near future.
1 October 2007
28 S Walby and J Allen, Domestic violence, sexual assault
and stalking: Findings from the British Crime Survey, Home Office,
2004 Back
29
Cross Government Action Plan on Sexual Violence and Abuse, April
2007 Back
30
Source: FORWARD www.forwarduk.org.uk Back
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