Clear manifesto commitments to funding refuges and helplines, and to compulsory Sex & Relationships Education

A national Coalition of women’s organisations working to end all forms of violence against women and girls has today (29 April) published a review of the five UK-wide political party manifestos, examining their policies on ending abuse.

The End Violence Against Women Coalition welcomes (1) Conservative, Green, Labour and Lib Dem commitments to ensuring sustainable funding for specialist women’s support services; and (2) Green, Labour and Lib Dem commitments to compulsory Sex & Relationships Education (SRE) in all schools as a critical measure for preventing abuse in the long-term.

The review of manifestos also finds:

Policies aimed at ending violence against women & girls feature prominently in specific sections in four of the five manifestos (Conservative, Green, Labour and Lib Dem).

All of the manifestos note the exposure of historic and recent child sexual abuse and exploitation since the last election and make specific commitments to respond to this – Conservatives will see the Westminster child sexual abuse inquiry through, and will continue an overhaul of the response to CSE; Labour will set up a cross-government ‘child protection unit,’ will make the reporting of child abuse mandatory and will introduce compulsory SRE as a way of detecting and preventing this form of abuse; Lib Dems and Greens will ensure sexual consent is taught in SRE as a way of preventing abuse.

Labour and the Lib Dems are committed to reviewing access to legal aid for survivors of abuse.

Conservatives will introduce age verification for pornography websites (this pledge now matched by Labour) and bring in age ratings for music videos; Greens will tackle the high street sale of ‘lads mags’ and pornography.

Greens and Lib Dems will end indefinite immigration detention; Labour will end the detention of asylum seeking women who have been subject to sexual violence, and set up an independent inquiry into allegations of abuse at Yarls Wood; the Coalition Government is already reviewing the immigration detention of ‘vulnerable people’.

Four of the five manifestos make commitments on mainstreaming gender equality policies and policy to end violence against women and girls in their foreign and international development policy (Conservative, Green, Labour and Lib Dem).

Conservatives and UKIP are both clear that they will abolish the Human Rights Act and the UK connection to the European Court of Human Rights.

End Violence Against Women Coalition Acting Director Sarah Green said:

“We are pleased to see policy to end and prevent abuse of women and girls feature prominently in these election manifestos. We know that many of these issues feature highly on voters’ lists of concerns, and it is clear that politicians across the parties are responding to that.

“Commitments to ensure women’s specialist support services, like refuges, helplines and BME women’s services, are sustainably funded are very welcome. These services are literally life-saving and provide the best chance for women and girls to move on after abuse. We and our members will be monitoring all developments and implementation in this area.

“We also welcome the clear commitment of three of the parties to compulsory Sex & Relationships Education. We know a huge majority of the public see this as a ‘common sense’ and overdue measure. We look forward to it being discussed in the House of Commons soon.

“Many of our member organisations are concerned at proposals to repeal human rights legislation because it have been used to hold to account the police and others when they have failed to protect women and girls. We urge caution on this and that women’s organisations and legal experts be consulted.

“We are living in a time of enormous revelation about abuse of women and girls, past and present, and changing public attitudes to it. We believe the tendency to blame victims is slowly being eroded and there is increased understanding of survivors’ needs. It is essential that our political leaders respond to and even lead this opinion so that we can truly aim to prevent abuse in the future.”

Prevalence violence against women and girls in the UK

At any one time 16,000 girls are at risk of sexual exploitation (Children’s Commissioner, 2012).

Rape Crisis services are reporting increases of more than 50% in calls to their helplines; but women-led specialist services in the community struggle to be sustainable and stay open.

85,000 women are raped and more than 400,000 sexually assaulted in England and Wales each year (ONS, 2012).

Asylum-seeking women who have been sexually assaulted in their countries of origin are held in indefinite immigration detention in the UK.

The needs of women in prostitution who are experiencing serious harm and who wish to exit are chronically over-looked, despite the early age of entry of many women into prostitution and its connections to other forms of abuse being well known.

British women who are survivors of FGM (female genital mutilation) have campaigned hard to expose this form of abuse and are urgently pushing for specific solutions in the health service and schools.

In 2013 the Government’s Forced Marriage Unit gave advice in more than 1,300 cases, more than 80% of whom were women and girls.

Domestic violence call-outs are a huge proportion of routine policing with more than a million incidents a year (ONS). The Counting Dead Women project, widely shared on social media, exposes the fundamentally gendered nature of this crime where 149 women were murdered by men in 2014 and where every one of those murders has lessons for what should be done to prevent this catastrophic level of killing.

Cuts to legal aid are putting women suffering abuse at further risk.

Cuts to domestic violence services have disproportionately affected BME women and many other women with extra vulnerabilities and special needs.

The EVAW Coalition review of the manifestos is here and will soon include reviews of the Plaid Cymru and SNP manifestos too.

Press release at http://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/news/201/general-election-manifesto-review-the-parties-policies-on-ending-abuse-of-women-girls

April 29, 2015