My Lords, I am pleased to move Amendment 173 in my name in this group of amendments.
It is a fact that domestic abuse disproportionately impacts women. More than one in four women in England and Wales will experience it at some point in their lives, compared with one in eight men. When we take a closer look at these statistics, we see that it is clear that the relationship between gender and domestic abuse is much deeper than the present statistics indicate, as the data on domestic abuse collected and published by the ONS does not take into account coercive and controlling behaviour. These are the best statistics that we have at the moment, but academics working in this field estimate that the gender disparity of experience of domestic abuse would significantly increase if coercive control were considered in these statistics.
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An average of two women are killed by their partner or ex-partner every week. In the year ending March 2019, five times more women than men were killed by their partner or ex-partner. Over the past two years, over 96% of women killed in domestic homicides were killed by men. More than half the men killed in domestic homicides were killed by other men. These figures demonstrate clearly that the overwhelming majority of domestic abuse cases involve male violence perpetrated against women.
The Istanbul convention’s full title is the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence. The convention places domestic abuse within the wider violence against women and girls framework. Charities such as Refuge, EVAW and others continually urge the Government to widen the scope of the Domestic Abuse Bill and make it a violence against women and girls Bill, to ensure that domestic abuse and other forms of voilence against women are responded to in a holistic, joined-up manner, recognising the key role that gender plays in these abuses. But, so far, this has not happened. I believe that it is essential that the gendered nature of domestic abuse is recognised in this Bill. As the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill said in its final report:
“Incorporating a gendered definition of domestic abuse ensures compliance with the requirements of the Istanbul Convention in demonstrating a gendered understanding of violence against women and domestic abuse as a basis for all measures to protect and support victims.”
None of this is to say that men do not experience domestic abuse or that they are less deserving of the vital support that they need. What is does mean is that domestic abuse is a form of violence against women and girls, where women make up the vast majority of victims and survivors of domestic abuse and men make up the majority of perpetrators.
Domestic abuse in the form of the Istanbul convention is a form of gender-based violence
“that is directed against a woman because she is a woman”.
The gendered nature of domestic abuse needs to be understood by all people whose job it is to respond to domestic abuse survivors and perpetrators, such as police officers, teachers, work coaches, doctors and many others who, in all likelihood, come into contact with survivors of domestic abuse in their day-to-day lives.
According to Refuge, the largest specialist provider of domestic abuse services in the country, it is becoming increasingly common for local authority contracts for domestic abuse support services to rely on a complete misunderstanding about what domestic abuse is and, therefore, the needs of survivors. I agree with organisations such as Refuge, Women’s Aid, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, the Southall Black Sisters and virtually every other domestic abuse service provider, that the best way of raising awareness of domestic abuse as a form of violence against women and girls is to include this in the Bill.
The Government’s consistent response is that they agree that domestic abuse disproportionately impacts women, which is why they have included it in the
statutory guidance accompanying the Bill. In fact, their 2020 report on progress toward ratification of the Istanbul convention says, on page 9:
“In March 2016 we published our cross-Government VAWG Strategy”—
that is, violence against women and girls—
“which set out our approach to tackling all forms of VAWG, including domestic abuse, so called ‘honour-based’ abuse, stalking and sexual violence. The Strategy recognised the gendered nature of these crimes, and committed to continuing to challenge deep-rooted social norms, attitudes and behaviours that discriminate against and limit women and girls across all communities … In March 2019, we published a refreshed Strategy to ensure that we were doing all that we could to tackle these crimes which disproportionately affect women.”
Those are the Government’s own words. They recognise that women are disproportionately affected, and all I am asking is that that be recognised in the Bill.
The Government have also said that the Bill, not the statutory guidance, will be the primary driver of domestic abuse policy. It is the legislation that police officers, work coaches, housing officers, local commissioners, employers and numerous others will look to when forming domestic abuse policies and procedures. If we do not make sure that the Bill includes an accurate description of domestic abuse then we will miss a huge opportunity to challenge some damaging ideas and dangerous practices.
The Government have also raised the concern that recognising domestic abuse as a form of violence against women and girls in the Bill would exclude male victims of domestic abuse from the definition. That is simply not true. Acknowledging domestic abuse as a form of violence against women and girls does not automatically exclude men, non-binary people or indeed anyone else from being included under the legal definition. The amendment demonstrates that it is perfectly possible to recognise domestic abuse as a form of violence against women and girls in the Bill without excluding any survivor, regardless of gender, from the definition.
This is one of the issues that received significant attention from the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill, which devoted a huge amount of time to scrutinising the Bill. Its report says:
“We believe many of the objections to a gendered definition of domestic abuse come from concerns that it could exclude men from the protection of the Act. We recognise this concern but our evidence shows it is based on a misunderstanding of what a gendered definition means in practice. A gendered definition of abuse does not exclude men. Anyone can, sadly, suffer from domestic abuse just as anyone, regardless of gender, can perpetrate it. In recommending a gendered definition of domestic abuse we want to embed a nuanced approach to the most effective response to domestic abuse for all individuals who suffer such violence, and to ensure that public authorities understand the root causes of this complex crime.”
The Bill is a chance to make a real difference to how domestic abuse is understood and responded to. The amendment gives us the best chance of ensuring that the primary driver of awareness is accurate, reflecting the gendered nature of domestic abuse and ensuring that survivors can access the support that they need. I beg to move.