Government Urged To Define Domestic Abuse

UNISON have highlighted the need for a statutory definition of violence against women, as a key step towards eliminating domestic violence.

One in four women in Britain will experence domestic violence in their lives, and it is now the second biggest category of violent crime – with 13 million incidents each year.

While as many as 80,000 women are raped each year, conviction for rape has dropped to 5.3%, the lowest for 30 years.

“What we must never forget is that every single one of those statistics represents a woman’s life, and behind every number is a woman with a story of abuse and violence to tell,” said Cath Elliot of the national woman’s committee. Ms Elliot said that though the government’s measures to combat domestic violence were welcomed, there were still “too many questions unanswered”.

She cited the recent so-called ‘honour killing’ of Banaz Mahmod, who was murdered by her father and uncle in Birmingham, after falling in love with a man her family did not want her to marry.

Ms Mahmod had asked police for help on several occasions, but was ignored.

“Just as the death of Stephen Lawrence woke us up to the reality of institutional racism, we can only hope that the death of Banaz Mahmod finally wakes us up to the institutionalised indifference to women’s lives.”

The lack of a statutory definition gives UK courts discretion to determine what domestic violence is, for themselves, conference heard.

UNISON believes that the government should adopt the UN’s definition, as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.

Guest speaker Baroness Scotland, minister of state for the criminal justice system and law reform, said that both employers and trade unions had a key role to play in combating “this pernicious crime”, not least because many perpetrators of domestic violence “have stalked, harassed and murdered their victims in the workplace.”

Source: UNISON press release

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