Women's Views on News |
| New report on BME women’s services Posted: 26 Nov 2015 09:39 AM PST
A powerful and authoritative new report on the health of the black and ethnic minority (BME) women's organisations which support women and girls fleeing or at risk of violence and abuse in the UK, was published on 21 November. And on 21 November campaigners marched from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street to hand in the report and a petition about protecting these services ahead of the spending review on 25 November – which was also the International Day for Ending Violence Against Women. The report outlines the extremely serious funding crisis now facing these BME women's services, which include refuges, helplines, outreach services and advice centres. And it warns of the devastating consequences the loss of this unique sector would have for BME women and girls in the UK, something which prominent leaders in these organisations now fear could happen. The report finds that BME women and children in the UK have great and urgent need of specialist BME women's services, which uniquely understand the situations they face; in the last financial year, in London alone, 733 BME women sought refuge spaces but only 154 were successful. Nationally, in one year alone, 17 BME violence against women and girls (VAWG) organisations supported a total of 21, 713 women. Case study: Apna Haq – The crisis facing Black women's services came to national attention this summer when Rotherham-based Apna Haq was threatened with closure, despite being the only specialist service for BME women and girls in a town which has a national spotlight on it following the child sexual exploitation prosecutions there. Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council awarded funding for 'floating support' targeted at BME women at risk of domestic violence to a non-BME specialist provider. Apna Haq's fight to survive continues, and the service users and supporters who gathered at Trafalgar Square and delivered their petition to Downing Street on 21 November are demanding centralised funding for Apna Haq and the national network of BME violence against women and girls services. Zlakha Ahmed, executive director of Apna Haq, said: "Independent, specialist and dedicated services run by and for the communities we seek to serve are lifesaving. "Our 'led by and for' services offer uniquely empowering experiences to women and children as service users are reflected in staffing, management and governance structures. "In Rotherham, we are a critical space for Black women to come together and share our experiences, keep each other safe and share our dreams. Demand is increasing every day. "We, and many others, simply cannot afford to close. Central government must take action now." More report findings: The 2011 census found that the BME population of the UK increased from 8.8 per cent in 2001 to 14 per cent, and in London stands at 40.2 per cent. Yet BME women's services have experienced a devastating reduction in funding, forcing some to close down and many to reduce capacity. There are currently over 34 dedicated specialist BME VAWG services in the UK, of which half are refuge providers who between them have over 700 years of experience of supporting women from BME communities. But the report shows that these services make up only a tiny proportion of violence and abuse services offered in the UK – most local councils fund no support for BME women facing these issues at all. Many areas in the UK have no such service, meaning BME women must travel further to receive support. This also demonstrates the need for a national funding solution for these life-saving services. Sixty-seven per cent of BME VAWG organisations spoke about the huge barriers they experience in accessing local funding because of the unequal playing field created by a funding/commissioning environment and culture, which favours larger, generic service providers. Imkaan's data suggests a worrying increase in specialist BME VAWG organisations being taken over and managed by generic providers across the UK, where just over half of BME VAWG services are currently managed by a large, mainstream organisation. BME VAWG services reported overwhelming uncertainty: "In the long term it does not look bright…they have announced the budget from 2015-2018 and I'm not convinced BME services will be considered from 2018-2021." The report has six main recommendations. To ensure the protection of BME women victims and survivors of violence, Imkaan makes the following recommendations: 1. National and local recognition of BME violence against women and girls ('VAWG') organisations as a unique specialist model of provision, providing local and national benefits across all aspects of health and social care, as well as contributing to the development of better-informed policies, legislation, practice innovation and significantly enhancing UK society. 2. A single national ring-fenced budget for specialist BME VAWG 'led by and for' organisations including refuge providers and outreach/ advocacy services, similar to the nationally based precedent set through the Rape Support Fund. 3. A mixed package of funding, consisting of national ring-fenced funding and grant-based funding by Local Authorities, Police and Crime Commissioners and Health commissioners to BME VAWG organisations. This should be attached to robust local accountability structures including lead VAWG commissioners in local areas, trained on all equalities strands. Any VAWG commissioning approach and setting of priorities should be linked to national and regional hate crime and VAWG strategies. 4. National accountability through a Violence Against Women and Girls Ombudsperson who will hold to account local commissioning services, highlight good practice in local areas and regions and take complaints. 5. Central funding for second-tier organisations, which supports services around sustainability including the development and implementation of specialist BME quality assurance frameworks, measuring impact, supporting consistency and strengthening skills and expertise. 6. For charitable funders, trusts, foundations to develop specific funding streams framed around VAWG and equalities based principles and aims. Both the full report and a summary are available here. Statistics on violence against women and girls: With 2 women a week killed in the UK at the hands of current or ex partners, 1,267 people seeking support from the forced marriage unit in one year, an estimated 137,000 women and girls affected by FGM, and approximately 85,000 women raped in England and Wales every year, we know that any further cuts to VAWG services will cost lives. New EU obligations to provide high standard services for victims: By November 2015, all EU member states will need to fulfill requirements set out in the Victims' Directive 2012/29/EU which sets out a set of minimum standards to ensure rights, protection, support and dignity to all victims of crime, regardless of residency status. Marai Larasi, executive director of Imkaan, said: "Support services which are set up and run by black and minority ethnic women are unequivocally the best at providing tailored support for women and girls who may be fleeing domestic violence, a threatened forced marriage, sexual abuse and more. "The women leading and working in these services understand the particular risks and dynamics of violence in different communities. "And they understand how the barriers to approaching mainstream services like the police and health, or even other charities, are greater for some women. "These organisations are well known in the communities they serve and have the highest numbers of women approaching them directly rather than being referred on by police, social workers or others. "Bigger, more generic services are rarely able to achieve this profile or these 'self-referrals'. "If these services are lost, lives will be lost. "When this lesson is learnt, it will be hard to start again and rebuild. "We urge the government to show that it understands the needs of BME women facing violence and to commit to a nationally ring-fenced funding solution." |
| Police apology for relationships: where next? Posted: 26 Nov 2015 08:59 AM PST It's an extraordinary statement by any standards. Even when the police pay large compensation, they usually do so with no admission of culpability for anything. But last Friday they issued a detailed, unreserved apology for the abuse of women who had relationships with undercover police officers. Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt even made a video of the admission, bluntly stating for the record that the relationships were "abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong. "I acknowledge that these relationships were a violation of the women's human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma… "Most importantly, relationships like these should never have happened. They were wrong and were a gross violation of personal dignity and integrity." The outrageousness and severity of how these women were treated is finally an acknowledged, settled fact. Some of the harrowing, heart wrenching impacts were spelled out by Lisa Jones – partner of Mark Kennedy for six years and whose discovery of his true identity brought the issue to light – when she gave her first ever interview on Friday. As ‘Rosa’, who had children with undercover officer Jim Boyling, said, "This has affected my whole view of the state and it went as deep as my womb." Kate Wilson's description of what was done to her was similarly powerful, and her highlighting of the continuing lack of transparency – "the police have made no effort whatsoever to provide any kind of answers" – shows that all this is far from over. It echoes what was said a year ago when the Met settled the first such case. Jacqui, who had a child with Bob Lambert, received £425,000 compensation but said "The legal case is finished but there is no closure for me. "There is the money, but there is no admission by the police that what they did was wrong, there is no meaningful apology and most importantly there are no answers." Although Friday's apology is a major historic victory, it is only confirming that what the women already know to be true. There is so much more still hidden from view. The Met's admission of their officers' serious abuse must surely mean that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have to revisit last year's extraordinary decision not to bring charges against these officers for sexual offences. As Gayle Newland starts her eight year sentence for creating a false identity to deceive someone into a sexual relationship, it's pretty clear that if this gang of men weren't police officers they would already be behind bars. Nobody else would get away with just giving an apology and a cheque from public funds. The CPS also decided not to prosecute them for other offences, explaining "In order to prosecute misconduct in public office, the prosecution would have to show that an officer knowingly abused their position in order to bring a sexual relationship about." It is hard to see how anyone could say anything else now. The Met have just conceded that the relationships didn't just happen but "none of the women with whom the undercover officers had a relationship brought it on themselves. They were deceived pure and simple…. [it was] an abuse of police power." But even now, the Met can't quite admit the whole truth. They "accept that it may well have reflected attitudes towards women that should have no part in the culture of the Metropolitan Police." They still can't bring themselves to use the word 'sexism'. The Met is institutionally sexist as well as institutionally racist. This cannot ever change if they refuse to fully face the facts, and in this apology they just shied away once again. Police say relationships were never authorised in advance and were never used tactically. But the overwhelming majority of known officers – all but two – did it. Most had long-term, committed life-partner relationships. One of them, Bob Lambert, lived with a woman and fathered a child before going on to run the unit, overseeing protegee officers who did the same thing, including ones involved in this week's settlement. He must surely have known. Sometimes officers were deployed together. Certainly, Lambert, Marco Jacobs and Lynn Watson saw colleagues having relationships. So, did they fail to report this 'grossly unprofessional, never allowed' behaviour to their seniors (thereby placing themselves at risk if they were ever found out)? Or did they report it but their bosses didn't intervene? Or was it, as it appears, an established, accepted tactic? Three years ago police lawyers said relationships weren't authorised, trying to blame individual 'rogue officers' and shield managers from responsibility. But then it was pointed out that if this was unauthorised behaviour then it wasn't covered by the rules governing surveillance in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. If that were so then any case would be heard in open court instead of a secret tribunal where the women's' side weren't allowed. So those same lawyers went back to the same court and argued that relationships were actually authorised after all. That was just one twist in the course of the four years and hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' pounds police spent trying to stop these women bringing the facts to light. The blanket use of "Neither Confirm Nor Deny" to refuse to even admit anyone was a police officer was an additional insulting hurdle to make the path to truth more gruelling. It's a pattern familiar from so many other justice campaigns – there's the injustice of what the police did, then the double injustice of the cover-up, smearing and legal obstacles that follow. The apology statement rightly mentioned the extra distress caused by the protracted legal case and paid tribute to the tenacity and mettle of the women. Even now, having just paid compensation and apologised to the women abused by John Dines and Mark Jenner, the police have not actually confirmed they were Special Demonstration Squad officers. Nonetheless, the apology, like the agreement to be liable for damages paid to people spied on by Marco Jacobs, is effectively an admission that these men were police. It is another hammer blow to the devious, farcical tactic of Neither Conform Nor Deny. With the public inquiry still to come, that is significant. All the appalling abuse these women suffered came from just five police officers. Even this isn't the end of it – there are several other similar cases are still ongoing, including more partners of Mark Kennedy and Marco Jacobs. We only know of the exposed officers due to the investigations and luck of activists and journalists. These are not necessarily the worst of them, merely what chance has revealed. There is so much more beyond. We have the names of around a dozen officers, less than 10 per cent of those known to have worked undercover in the political secret police units. How many other women were similarly abused? How many other children searching for their fathers are doomed to failure because it's a name a police officer made up or stole from a dead child? How many campaigns were stymied? What other outrages have occurred that none of the known officers committed? At least 500 groups and uncountable thousands of individuals were spied on. They all have a right to know. If these seven women deserve justice, so do the rest. If the public deserves the truth it deserves the whole truth, not somewhere under 10 per cent of it. Chair of the forthcoming public inquiry, Lord Pitchford, says "The Inquiry's priority is to discover the truth." The only way we will get the truth is if those who were targeted tell their stories. The only way that can happen is if they know that their former friend and comrade was in fact a police spy. If the Inquiry is to serve its purpose, and if the Met are truly contrite, then they must publish the cover names of all undercover officers from the political policing units. A version of this article appeared on COPS – the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance – website on 23 November 2015. |
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