| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
I shall deal briefly with the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. He has railed against injustice, as I do frequently. Of course there are occasions when false allegations are made. In my experience, they are rare. I am afraid that I disagreed with him before on the issue of anonymity, and I do so again. Anonymity is very important if we are to encourage women to come forward and seek justice for these offences. He has described police behaving unfairly to an accused. I am afraid that happens, and I hope he will have those thoughts in his mind when he is busy supporting identity cards and the erosion of civil liberties.
The reason for law reform’s failure is that rape is the ultimate buffer. It is where the law crashes up against the rawest display of the continuing power imbalance between men and women. It is where distorted notions of masculinity, misogyny and male entitlement surface. As our society becomes fairer, women are genuinely seen and treated as the equal of men and sex takes place in a spirit of real mutuality; it will be only then that we will see real justice for women. In the mean time, I applaud the Government for their latest efforts.
29 Nov 2007 : Column 1322
12.50 pm
Baroness Kingsmill: My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, and expressing admiration and respect for her. I express my admiration also for my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General. When I was a non-executive director in the Home Office, I witnessed her dedicated, persistent and creative approach as a Minister there. We have much to be grateful to her for, and I am proud of the Government’s record in this area.
The extent to which violence is perpetrated against women in our society is a stain on it. It is a stain of which we must be aware and which we must be unstinting in our efforts to remove, be it in the form of domestic violence against wives, partners and children, or of so-called “honour” killings, the dishonour of which shames those who do not condemn them, or of the violent pornography which is becoming all too common in many forms of our media, or of the despicable sexual violence against women, particularly those who have been trafficked, that takes place in the form of prostitution. There are many more examples. They are all issues which we must redouble our efforts to address.
I shall not speak for very long, because others have spoken with much more flair, energy and experience. I am grateful to those who have expressed some of my own ideas and thoughts. However, I ask the Government to make unlawful the purchase of sex. We should stand up and condemn the commodification of women through the purchase of sex, particularly since most statistics suggest that a substantial number of women are engaged in the sex trade not through consent or for any reason other than economic need or being forced by slave masters of one kind or another because they are trafficked. I ask the Government carefully to consider whether a new sexual offence outlawing the purchase of sex could be introduced. It has been done in Scandinavia to significant effect.
I support those noble Lords who have asked for a campaign to highlight the horrors and extent of sexual violence against women. However, the campaign should emphasise not so much the victim and how awful they feel—although we have all been made aware in graphic terms of that today through stories such as those related by my noble friend Lady Howells, which fill us all with shock and upset—as the violent impulses of men who perpetrate violence against women. Most men are good, decent human beings—indeed, I am married to one, as is my daughter, and I would recommend it highly. However, there is a small proportion of men whose masculinity has become so distorted by the oversexualisation of our society and the extent to which violence is seen as a solution to many problems that they are desperately in need of help. Any campaign that raises awareness of the extent of sexual violence against women should emphasise in particular the need for men to readdress the violent aspects of their nature.
12.55 pm
Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, I am glad that my noble friend Lady Gale has given us the opportunity to discuss this important issue, and I am delighted that my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland
29 Nov 2007 : Column 1323
I shall speak about young people and sexual exploitation, and include briefly the issue of trafficking. As my noble friend Lady Gould said earlier, the exploitation of children is particularly horrendous. Sexual exploitation is the use of children for the sexual satisfaction of adults. Unequal power relations are implicit in this, and the child is exploited for her or his youth and sexuality, as set out by the UN in 2001. Sexual exploitation involves a sexual component without consent. Sexually exploited children and young people are victims of abuse. They should not be treated as offenders in relation to prostitution. This has been clearly stated in the Department of Health’s guidance for safeguarding young people, and by the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Home Office.
There has been much research on exploited children. I am grateful particularly to Professor Jenny Pearce, who is chair of the National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Children and Young People, for sharing her thoughts with me. She points out that those young people who persistently return to selling sex are the most vulnerable, most damaged and most in need of welfare services. They are most likely to be trapped in abusive relationships with paedophile rings. Criminalising young people does not help. What they need is support; what they need is therapeutic secure provision. I know that this matter has been put to the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which is rewriting guidance. I look forward to seeing that guidance at a later point.
The National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Children and Young People supports 129 projects across the country. It recommends the removal of all forms of criminalisation of offences related to prostitution involving children and young people, and the removal of the use of ASBOs in such circumstances . I quote from Dr Pearce:
“All sexually exploited children and young people, especially those whose behaviour is challenging and difficult, need to be understood as victims of sexual abuse. Their challenging behaviour is a result of abuse and they should be worked with through the child protection welfare procedures”.
Every local safeguarding children board should have a strategy on this. It would mean addressing the need for local therapeutic services and secure therapeutic services for the most damaged and vulnerable young people. They must not be criminalised.
Research suggests that support for such vulnerable young people at an early stage of risk can prevent a descent into prostitution. Barnardo’s has recently carried out a cost-benefit analysis. Early prevention can halt escalation of young people’s use of intensive support services, which can cost more than £300,000 a year.
Local safeguarding children boards need a protocol for safeguarding sexually exploited children and young people, which includes identifying how risk assessment is carried out. Each board needs a multi-agency subgroup which focuses on reviewing and developing care plans.
29 Nov 2007 : Column 1324
Inspectorates need to identify and review progress of each local safeguarding children board in relation to their protocols for sexually exploited children and young people. Particular attention needs to be given to those young people at the extreme edge of exploitation: those selling sex, living away from home, often in an abuser’s accommodation, or suffering self-abuse and drug and alcohol problems. Often all these problems apply to one child. Multi-agency work must be encouraged, particularly between police and child protection services and between child and adolescent mental health services and safeguarding children boards. I know that ongoing research funded by the Home Office is looking into improving practice on gathering evidence against abusers and taking cases to court. There is legislation which enables this—for example, the Child Abduction Act 1984 and the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. I understand that the Sexual Offences Act 2003, while being welcome, is underused. How might the Government pull together various departments to tackle the issue of sexual exploitation of children? Also, will the 2001 national plan on safeguarding sexually exploited children and young people be updated, as it is seriously out of date?
On the trafficking of people for sexual or other purposes, the majority of the 800,000 people who are trafficked are women, especially for the sex industries. Women trapped in poverty and denied education are more likely to be desperate and to be misused in this way. Many are the victims of abuse and rape. According to the UNHCR one in five women are victims of rape and between 40 per cent and 60 per cent of these are against girls under 16 years of age. Organisations such as Plan International and Stop the Traffik and other humanitarian organisations give many examples of the dreadful abuse of young men and women when trafficked either internally or across international borders.
In the case of trafficked young people, research suggests that better provision of interpreters at airports and reception points is essential. A review of the “going missing” population suggests that over 50 per cent of trafficked young people placed into local authority care go missing within 72 hours. This can be tackled by better interpreter provision, specialised foster care provision, a review of private foster care arrangements and specialist youth services that can support the young person. There are examples of good practice in Sheffield, Hillingdon and Croydon. There is research and guidance—for example, by the NSPCC and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Could cross-government initiatives be instigated? Such children should be helped and supported, not criminalised. Child protection, in whatever form it takes, is a serious issue for all government departments. I look forward to the Minister's response.
29 Nov 2007 : Column 1325
1.03 pm
Baroness Pitkeathley: My Lords, I join others in congratulating my noble friend on securing this debate and on her indefatigable pursuit of related topics, especially her defence of women who have been raped. We all have cause to be grateful to her and to a Government who take this subject so seriously and have done, and are doing, so much in legislation and public education, as personified by my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General, who will be replying to this debate.
I am sure that we were all delighted with Wednesday’s announcement about the guidance to be given to courts on the treatment of woman who have been raped. I am as shocked as any feeling person must be about the low rate of conviction for rape and, indeed, about the extraordinarily low rate of reporting this terrible crime When I was in New Zealand earlier this year, where the conviction rate is much higher, as my noble friend said, I was struck by the difference in attitudes to women who are raped. There, attitudes start with sympathy, understanding and belief, rather than an attempt to apportion blame to the woman because of her perceived complicity, either because of her dress, because she has been drinking or because of her sexual history—all attitudes with which we are sadly familiar in our country. So I very much welcome the new proposals.
Today I shall focus on pornography—its availability, its effect and the Government’s efforts to control it. In the early 1990s, I attended one of the Civil Service top management programmes. I remember a session on the future of IT and how it would transform all our lives. It seems incredible now but back then we had not yet come to see the internet as such an integral part of our lives; in fact, I may just have been struggling to come to terms with faxes. I remember the lecturer telling us that by far the majority of what we now call “hits” on the internet were then, and in his view always would be, to access pornographic sites. I remember how shocked and disbelieving all the participants were, taken up as we were with the possibilities for increasing the sum of human knowledge that the internet offered and its ability to educate and inform and to increase participation in just about every way you can imagine.
Later in the same week, we moved on to one of our case studies—the Metropolitan Police—where we were exposed to the widespread use of the internet among paedophile rings for the exploitation of women and especially of children. I am a social worker and have worked in very rough areas of the country and among very distressed people, but I was shocked by the films and photographs that the police had to monitor and very glad that they were doing it so that others did not have to.
Since then, how much worse and more widespread this has become. I am thankful for the filters that our IT systems provide in your Lordships’ House, but I know that most people are bombarded with the offers that pop up constantly on their screens, offering access to images that once were available only through great effort and through channels that were sufficiently risky as to put most people off. I do not wish to sound unduly censorious on this matter. I suppose what
29 Nov 2007 : Column 1326
There is little reliable evidence about whether viewing pornography leads to sexual offences, but I do not find it difficult to conclude that the very availability of such material must inure people to its existence. The fact that you can access this stuff in the total privacy of your bedroom so that no one need know and you do not run the risk of being found out must mean that the moral censure that we all fear does not exist as a restraining factor. Moreover, the constant viewing of women or, worse, children—the so-called PTHC factor; in case your Lordships are not familiar with that acronym, I am afraid that it stands for “pre-teen hardcore”—being abused must surely to some extent numb one to the outrage of such behaviour.
We must never forget that behind most pornographic images of children is an abused child and that, like women who have been raped, they will suffer for years, probably all their lives, not only from the offence itself but from the knowledge that such material will be pored over for years by viewers. According to the Internet Watch Foundation, access to this type of material has quadrupled over three years and the more serious degrading images are growing in number fastest. Of course, the police are overwhelmed by the time taken to track down those who download this stuff, but there is an increasing understanding that we must also devote time to discover the producers, often part of big international concerns, not just the distributors and buyers. We cannot ignore the part that poverty plays in this; when people are poor they are, as we know, driven to desperation, which leads to them being vulnerable to abusers.
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 has succeeded in providing a clear legal framework to tackle sexual offending in the 21st century. The extension of what constitutes the offence of rape and the introduction of other offences was very much to be welcomed. In particular, it offered a coherent regime of offences to tackle sexual offending against children, especially those aged under 13. This ability to offer greater protection to vulnerable members of the community, especially children, was a great step forward, particularly identifying predatory acts such as grooming.
Through the Internet Watch Foundation, progress has continued to be made in regulating the internet. Perhaps we can find some small measure of comfort in the fact that less than 1 per cent of child abuse content appears to be hosted here in the United Kingdom. Recently, there have also been welcome signs that internet service providers are taking a more proactive approach themselves. Of course, the Government actively support efforts within the European Union and more widely to combat child pornography on the internet.
29 Nov 2007 : Column 1327
The recently introduced criminal justice Bill, now in its Committee stage in the House of Commons, is also to be welcomed, as it covers aspects of pornography such as the possession of images that are both extreme and pornographic. The proposals are based on extensive consultation, but I am afraid that they are still subject to criticism about what constitutes “extreme” or indeed “pornographic”.
Of course, some will see such proposals as a restriction of personal freedom and will tell us again that there is no firm evidence that possession of such material is bound to corrupt. For my part, it is self-evident that when the general tendency is to be more accepting of pornography than we have ever been—where images once available only in back rooms in hushed tones now scream at you from your local newspaper shop—that is bound to lead to a loss of inhibition and increased leniency about what is and is not morally acceptable. I believe that this is liable to damage not only the potential victim but the potential perpetrator; it damages overall the community and its moral standards. I hope that when the Bill comes to this House, which I believe will be in January, we will give it a very positive response. I also hope that the Government and all those who have anything to do with lawmaking will continue to be vigilant in tackling this horrendous issue.
1.12 pm
Baroness Rendell of Babergh: My Lords, it is not unusual for me to speak on female genital mutilation in your Lordships’ House, but I believe that putting an end to it is so serious and important a goal that raising the subject frequently is essential. Indeed, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Gale for giving me the opportunity to do so once again by instituting this debate and I congratulate her on all aspects of what she said.
Sexual offences against women are a wound on the body of our society, and none more so, I suggest, than genital mutilation, which is literally a wound that never truly heals in the whole of a woman’s lifetime. It is a rape of the grossest kind, for it is always performed either against a woman’s will—more probably a small female child’s will—or with a reluctant consent that she sees as inevitable. I have gone into the cruel and ugly details of this procedure here in this House too often to enter into them again. Suffice it to say that once a woman—or baby or infant, no matter which so long as she is female—has undergone this brutal procedure, she will suffer from its effects for her whole childbearing life and beyond. Her risk of giving birth to a dead child will be increased, as will her own chance of dying, apart from the degrading results present in all aspects of her sexual and reproductive existence. At present, the most reliable figures obtainable show that 15,000 women and girls are, as my noble friend Lady Gale pointed out, at risk of undergoing the mutilation of their sexual organs; this is not in Africa, where the threat is far higher, but here in the United Kingdom.
Immigrants from Africa, particularly the Horn of Africa, practise FGM. Most of them carry it out with the mistaken aim of benefiting a daughter or
29 Nov 2007 : Column 1328
Governments have not been slow to introduce legislation making this procedure, in its various forms, illegal. The first legislation was the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, which was superseded 19 years later by the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, introduced as a Private Member’s Bill and supported by the present Government. This provided a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment for anyone carrying out the procedure or taking a woman or female child out of this country to have it performed overseas where it may not be against the law.
That is an excellent measure, yet under it no prosecution has yet been brought. This, I now believe, is in no way due to lack of effort on the part of the police or the social services, though it is true that still too few teachers in primary schools are aware of the threat to their small female pupils and too few nurses and midwives yet know what FGM is and what they should be on the watch for. There are still only a very few local authority-maintained refuges available to women trying to escape FGM, although the appalling fact is that, even if there were hundreds, most victims would be far too young to have recourse to them.
Last summer, the Metropolitan Police offered a reward of £20,000 to anyone giving information that would lead to a successful prosecution for FGM. However, although we hear of ongoing investigations, no prosecution has yet been brought. Twenty thousand pounds is a substantial sum, large to anyone, but enormous to most of those living in the probably straitened circumstances of African immigrant communities. Yet there has been no prosecution. That leads us to believe what we had already begun to suspect, which is that people who practise this rite—I hurry to say that I spell the word RITE—hold it almost as an article of faith that their practice must at all cost be kept secret and, indeed, never be spoken of.
Does my noble and learned friend agree that this is a taboo that must be broken and that those who speak, in this particular instance, of ancient traditions being respected must not be listened to? As recently as the spring of this year, at a conference in Kenya, Sheikh Harun Rashid spoke for Muslim leaders when he said that,
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |