By Andrea Simon, Head of Public Affairs, End Violence Against Women Coalition.
End Violence Against Women (EVAW) is a leading coalition of specialist women’s support services, researchers, activists, survivors and NGOs working to end violence against women and girls (VAWG) in all its forms.
Established in 2005, we campaign for every level of government to adopt better, more joined-up approaches to ending and preventing violence against women and girls, and we challenge the wider cultural attitudes that tolerate and condone this abuse. EVAW was established with a core vision: that violence against women and girls is not inevitable, and that Government could and should do a lot more to address it.
Why this work is needed:
Women and girls’ very disproportionate experience of these forms of gender-based violence throughout their lives is driven by women’s ongoing inequality, with many women facing multiple disadvantages due to race, disability, poverty or immigration status. Tired of a piecemeal approach to this big social problem, which rarely went beyond criminal justice responses, we campaigned for a cross-Government strategy to prevent and tackle VAWG. This became a reality with the first Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy published in 2010.
Since then, and until March 2020, this strategy has been regularly renewed and refreshed. Whilst there are several important areas it needs to address further, it has nonetheless led to some more joined-up thinking in government, and transformation in responses to abuse including: substantial changes in the way the police and courts respond to VAWG cases; legislative and policy change around coercive control, FGM, and image-based abuse; a very significant roll out of special victim-focused advocates (independent domestic violence advisors (IDVAs) and indepedent sexual violence advisors (ISVAs)) for some domestic and sexual violence victims; a real growth in the recognition and development of perpetrator intervention work; and support in making the case for compulsory Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) in all schools.
How ratification would help:
Article 7 of the Istanbul Convention underscores the need for this vital joined up approach, by requiring state-wide effective, comprehensive and co-ordinated policies so there is a holistic response to preventing and combatting VAWG.
However the latest VAWG strategy ran out in March 2020; it has not yet been renewed. We are concerned about the delay to this work, and about the possible fragmentation of a VAWG approach if separate strategies that address different forms of VAWG such as domestic abuse are developed and not integrated within a comprehensive VAWG strategy.
Women and children’s lives are not fragmented, and real-life experiences of VAWG are deeply and frequently interconnected. More than a million women have experienced multiple and severe forms of violence throughout their lives, from sexual abuse and domestic abuse in childhood, through abuse as teens, to rape and domestic abuse as adults, sometimes sadly accompanied by addictions, employment and family problems. Around a third of the rapes going through the criminal justice system are rapes within the context of domestic abuse.
Integrated policy is essential for protecting victims, and taking the next step of reducing victimisation and preventing abuse in the first place. It is critical that the government takes steps to ensure we have specialist support services run by women who understand different women’s needs, and that the public sector workers across housing, health settings, schools, and the criminal justice system are appropriately trained and resourced to also provide an effective response to survivors.
We need the next phase of the VAWG Strategy to go further in recognising the public’s increased awareness of and rejection of gender-based violence, and the expectation that all survivors’ needs will be met. It has to guarantee that there is equal protection and support through sustainable and specialist community-based services for all women regardless of immigration status, as well as specialist sexual violence support for all survivors. It must also work effectively so that all women can seek justice, including those who receive poorer justice outcomes such as black and minoritised women, deaf and disabled women and women living in poverty.
Ratifying the Istanbul Convention would mean the UK government had an obligation to take a joined up approach to addressing violence against women, and it would give them the framework to do so.
This would help ensure that we have an effective and coordinated response to all forms of VAWG, so that women and girls can be free to live their lives without the threat of violence.
Take action now
We urge you to support the IC Change campaign for ratification by signing the petition today