November 25th is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Violence in the home has increased during Covid 19; contact during the lockdown period to Wales’ national helpline for women rose by 49% and call time trebled. During the national lockdown period, data from Counting Dead Women – a project that recalls the killing of women by men identified thirty-five murders with another twelve strongly suspected cases between March 23rd and the start of July.
Statistics in 2019 show that one in three women aged 16–59 will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime and that two women a week are killed by a current or former partner in England and Wales. In Wales last year, only one in ten people accused of domestic violence was convicted. There are a multitude of myths about violence against women ; it only happens when the man uses alcohol, it is isolated to poor families, more women would leave if it was that bad, abusers grow up in violent homes, it is a private matter – we shouldn’t get involved. These are all myths.
More money is needed to finance a system that has been decimated in the cuts to public sector funding. The need is across the board; to help victims be rescued from danger, to support them in their choices for the next steps, to ensure that that children are safe and can also have the mental health support they need, and to address the needs of perpetrators to change their behaviour. Less than 1% of perpetrators of abuse get the specialist intervention they need to change. The justice system needs to be revised dramatically to make it easier for women to come forward and to be believed.
And finally, we need to talk about it more, be more open, allow women the safety to speak out without shame and judgement. In Wales, we have lead the way on a range of issues; free prescriptions, the Future Generations Commissioner and a presumption on organ donation. Wales can do the same with violence in the home and work to stop it right now.
* Jane Dodds is Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Has Britain lost its mind?
Mike Martin, Lib Dem PPC for Tunbridge Wells, on what victory looks like for Ukraine and how it can be achieved
Tories not so pro-business after all
Weekly Road Report - West End Ward #dundeewestend
Three polls in need of a second glance - The Week in Polls
Conference video day 1
Steve Trevethan
Marco
Michael BG
Peter Martin
4 Comments
Thank you for a most important article!
This is strong, but the party would have clout if it supported tougher sentences for all violent crimes instead of seeming to abhor prison.
Every person in the party who talks about one or two issues seems to support a strong approach. each policy the party decides to accept, seems to include a soft get out clause.
How about an emphasis on jail, and harsh, for cruelty, and long sentences , but free them of non violent all together.
Might we discuss causes as well as possible solutions?
Might the causes of domestic violence be macro-situational as well individually situational and those of personal responsibility?
Perhaps our party might examine and better manage the macro- situational causes and contributory factors such as poverty and socially tolerated, even connived at, behaviours?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/there-is-a-war-on-ordinary-people-and-feminists-are-needed-at-the-front/5337947
As someone who lives and works in Wales, I am pleased that ALDE has launched 16 Days of Activism against gender based violence with a Liberal Breakfast on Violence Against Women in Politics.
The event was co-hosted between the ALDE Party and Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the panel consisted of former UN Women Chief of the Asia-Pacific and Arab States Dr Socorro Reyes, Renew Europe MEP from the Netherlands Samira Rafaela, and European Women’s Academy Alumnae Advisory Board Member Madelaine Jakobsson. The event was moderated by EWA Project Manager Adam Vink.
ALDE will holding further events over the next fortnight.