House of Commons - Home Affairs

Select Committee on Home Affairs Written Evidence

APPENDIX 28

Memorandum submitted by the TUC

BACKGROUND

The TUC represents 59 affiliated trade unions with a total 6.5 million members. Trade union members work in a wide variety of organisations, sectors and occupations and come from a diverse range of backgrounds. Our affiliates regularly represent women workers suffering the impact of domestic violence, and they work with employers in raising awareness of violence against women and developing related policies and practice.

The TUC welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Home Affairs Select Committee Inquiry into Domestic Violence. The TUC believes that violence against women is both a cause and a consequence of women's inequality, that it has a serious impact on mental and physical health and is costly to the state in terms of criminal justice, health and other resources. In recent years the TUC has campaigned on the issues of violence against women and domestic violence, working with affiliated trade unions and organisations such as Amnesty International and the End Violence Against Women coalition. The TUC endorses the submission made by the End Violence Against Women coalition to the Home Affairs Select Committee Inquiry. It is against this backdrop that the TUC submits its own response.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

— The TUC welcomes the high priority the Government has placed on tackling domestic violence since 2001 but is concerned that the impact of valuable initiatives tackling domestic violence has been lessened by a contradictory and fragmentary approach.

— The TUC believes that the Government's policy on domestic violence should take the form of a wider, integrated strategic national action plan on violence against women.

Making the Grade 2006

— The lack of an integrated approach has also prevented effective links being made with the Government's work on trafficking, sexual exploitation and women within the criminal justice system.

— The TUC believes that violence against women and domestic violence is a trade union issue, and has conducted surveys of trade union members about their experiences of domestic violence.

— As a result of the findings of the survey, the TUC has produced a guide for employers and trade unions on tackling domestic violence as it impacts on the workplace, copies of which are available on request.

— The TUC recommends:

— Adoption of the United Nation's definition of Violence Against Women by all Government departments.

— A focus on preventing violence against women before, rather than after, its occurrence.

— Inclusion of tackling violence against women in the Government's Public Service Agreements.

— The development and implementation of a strategic, cross-departmental approach to tackling violence against women in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the extension of the strategy on reserved matters to Scotland.

— Provision of long term, secure funding to support joined up services for vulnerable women and girls.

— Closure of service provision gaps experienced by certain groups, including BME women, women on low incomes, trafficked children, disabled women, women who live in rural areas and trans people.

— Service provision for those people in same sex relationships experiencing domestic violence.

— Tackling violence against women to be a priority for the new CEHR.

— Use of the Gender Equality Duty to tackle violence against women.

— Awareness raising amongst employers of the impact of violence against women in the workplace and encouraging the provision of appropriate support, in consultation with trade unions.

CONTEXT OF TUC RESPONSE

1.1 Following a motion to the TUC Women's Conference in 2001, domestic violence and violence against women has been a central strand of the TUC Women's Committee. The Women's Conference called upon the TUC Women's Committee to develop a guide for employers and trade unions to tackle domestic violence as it impacts on the workplace. Anecdotal evidence from trade union officers suggested that domestic violence affected a significant number of members and had an impact on their working lives. Some evidence pointed to the fact that members were being disciplined by employers because of erratic time keeping, absence records and performance at work due to the effects of domestic violence.

1.2 In light of this, the TUC surveyed delegates to the TUC Women's Conference 2002 and found that 56% of respondents had themselves or worked with someone who had experienced domestic violence. This was in line with official figures that showed that one in four women would experience domestic violence at some point in their lives.

1.3 In May 2002, the TUC published Breaking the Silence on Domestic Violence, which provided a breakdown and analysis of the 2002 Women's Conference survey responses. Key findings and recommendations from this survey included the need for young people to be taught about domestic violence through the National Curriculum and through school discussion, and the need for workplaces to be more actively accessed for the quick, safe and easy dissemination of information to domestic violence victims.

1.4 At the same time, the TUC developed a guide for employers and trade unions on how to tackle domestic violence as it impacts on the workplace. The TUC worked closely with organisations such as Women's Aid, the CBI, trade unions and the Women's National Commission to develop the guide.

1.5 Domestic Violence: a guide for the workplace, published in November 2002, included facts and figures about the prevalence of domestic violence, case studies and advice on drawing up a workplace policy to address the key issues of support, referral and confidentiality. It has proved to be a very popular resource with trade unions and employers in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

1.6 The TUC conducted a further survey[98] at the 2007 TUC Women's Conference measuring the extent to which workplaces were engaging with the issue of domestic violence and violence against women. The results supported the conclusions of previous TUC surveys: that domestic violence and violence against women were issues that were experienced by women workers and women trade unionists, that it could take place both in the workplace and at home and that it was an issue which the trade union movement should engage with.[99]

1.7 TUC Congress in 2004, 2006 and 2007 reaffirmed the high priority placed by the trade union movement on tackling violence against women and domestic violence. In particular, TUC Congress 2007 reiterated the call for a national strategy on tackling violence against women as well as the need to recognise and challenge "honour" killings as yet another form of violence against women.

1.8 Both TUC Women's Conference and TUC Congress have adopted resolutions supporting the End Violence Against Women Coalition. As a member of the Coalition, the TUC identifies a broad focus on the issue of violence against women as the most effective and coherent way of tackling both domestic violence and other gender-based violence endured by girls and women. In the UK, violence includes, but is not restricted to domestic violence, rape and sexual violence, stalking, sexual harassment, forced marriage, Female Genital Mutilation, so called "honour" crimes and killings, trafficking and forced prostitution.

1.9 The TUC believes that the workplace is an ideal place to highlight domestic violence and offer support to victims. The TUC's surveys supports the findings of other research that has shown that women see their workplaces as safe havens from violence at home. However, not all women are safe in their workplaces. Surveys have been conducted by TUC affiliates of their women members. USDAW found that women workers in the retail sector could expect physical attack, sexual harassment and serious physical threats as a usual part of their working lives; workers in the transport sector frequently face abuse and assaults in the course of their work; the 2007 TUC women's conference survey results revealed that some respondents had faced domestic violence at home and sexual harassment and bullying at work.

1.10 The results of the TUC's work within the trade union movement and without have emphasised the need to take a broad approach to violence against women in order to be truly effective in tackling it, and the need to challenge violence both within the workplace as well as in the home. Affiliates and respondents to surveys have emphasised the need to educate young people about domestic violence and violence against women, and the need to use workplaces to disseminate information to domestic violence victims.

A NATIONAL STRATEGY TO TACKLE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

1.11 The TUC believes that a coherent national strategy with a commonly understood definition of violence against women is essential to tackling domestic violence and other manifestations of violence against women. The TUC concurs with the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) recommendation of adopting the UN's definition of violence against women.[100] This would eliminate the problem of differing definitions used by agencies and government departments involved in the work of tackling domestic violence and violence against women.

1.12 Following the End Violence Against Women Coalition's first survey into the work of Government departments in 2005, which found a lack of coherence and great variation from department to department, the 2006 "Making the Grade"[101] survey examined progress made to date. The second survey revealed that while good progress had been made in some departments, particularly the CPS and Home Office, it became clear that a failure to grasp the concept of violence against women, unstructured work, lack of strategic indicators and shared goals across government continued to hamper work on domestic violence and violence against women. It is also difficult to measure the impact of the work of Government departments because it does not measure how well or badly its policies on violence against women is working—primarily because violence against women does not feature in the Government's Public Service Agreements. The TUC believes this should be rectified. The TUC also believes that the adoption of a common definition would underpin the development and implementation of a strategic approach to violence against women in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the extension of that strategy on reserved matters to Scotland.

1.13 EVAW's "Making the grade" report also points out that those countries that had adopted integrated plans of action on violence against women report benefits that include better inter-agency working, raised awareness of the issues, more effective legislation and policies and innovative practice.[102] The TUC believes that such an approach is essential given that incidence rates of violence against women are not decreasing and that surveys reveal that a substantial minority of the general population hold disturbing attitudes condoning violence against women.[103]

1.14 The introduction of the Gender Equality Duty and the creation of the CEHR present the opportunity to integrate a crosscutting, integrated approach to tackling violence against women. Furthermore, the positive duty to promote gender equality would enable an approach to violence against women that would concentrate on tackling violence against women before, not after, its occurrence. The Gender Equality Duty is also an opportunity for Government departments and other agencies to think seriously and practically about how gender based violence is a real barrier to achieving and promoting women's equality.

1.15 The TUC believes that the CEHR is in an ideal position to take on the issue of violence against women. The TUC endorses the views set out by the Equality and Diversity Forum in their response to the Home Affairs Select Committee's Inquiry, which highlights the way that women's experience of domestic violence is informed by their ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, disability and religion or belief. Women from some ethnic minority communities may face particular difficulties in accessing services that are responsive to their concerns, and may find it harder to leave a violent situation if it means they also leave behind other forms of community support. This situation is exacerbated by the lack of long term secure funding for services supporting vulnerable women and girls. BME women, women on low incomes, trafficked children, disabled women, women who live in rural areas and trans people currently experience service gaps that compound the difficulties they face in receiving support. The TUC is also concerned at the lack of provision for people within same sex relationships experiencing violence within the home. The CEHR is thus in an ideal position to lead effective approaches that take account of the diversity of women facing abuse and their needs.

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