Women's Views on News |
| Campaign against financial abuse Posted: 11 Dec 2015 12:54 PM PST
Nearly one in five British adults say they have experienced financial abuse in an intimate relationship, according to research that is part of a new ethical campaign launched recently by the Co-op Bank and Refuge, the national domestic violence charity. The campaign – "My money, my life" – aims to raise awareness of the true scale of financial abuse for the first time, as it occurs within intimate relationships, where financial control, exploitation or sabotage are used to control a person's ability to acquire, use and maintain financial resources. The Co-op Bank and Refuge say they carried out the UK's largest study to date in this area in order to understand the prevalence of financial abuse in intimate relationships in the UK. And their key findings? One in five UK adults is a victim of financial abuse in a relationship; Half of victims experience a partner taking financial assets without permission; For women, financial abuse rarely happens in isolation – 86 per cent experience other forms of abuse; A third of financial abuse victims suffer in silence, telling no one; Six out of ten victims of financial abuse are women; and One in three people know somebody who has been financially abused. What is financial abuse? Financial abuse in intimate relationships is a way of controlling a person's ability to acquire, use and maintain their own money and financial resources. Financial abuse is also a form of domestic violence. According to Nicola Jeff-Sharp, from the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) at London Metropolitan University, it is best described as an example of intimate partner violence. Domestic violence involves a pattern of behaviour that one person uses to control, undermine and obtain power over another person. Domestic abuse can include physical, sexual, psychological/emotional and financial abuse. More simply, financial abuse is a current or former partner controlling someone's ability to acquire, use or maintain financial resources by preventing victims from earning or accessing their own money. Examples of this include: stealing money from a partner; preventing a partner from accessing their own/joint account; damaging possessions which then have to be replaced; insisting benefits are in their name; putting debts in a partner's name and stopping a partner from going to work This abuse can also continue post-separation. And while one in five of all adults in the UK have been a victim of financial abuse in a current or past relationship, and victims span gender, age and income groups, it is however notable that the majority of cases are reported by women. Financial abuse against women is more likely to start at key life stage events compared to men, for example, when moving in with a partner, getting married or having a baby. Financial abuse in relationships against women also lasts for a longer period of time compared to men. Women are also more likely to experience financial abuse in multiple relationships and post separation. Women experiencing financial abuse in relationships were more likely to be heterosexual and living as married, with the highest prevalence of financial abuse occurring amongst full-time working women and women working part-time. And as women are the most affected group, and the research shows they are the least likely to contact their bank for help, breaking down the barriers to enable a woman to access support from her bank is a key part of the campaign. But while overall the report shows that while the majority of people experiencing this type of abuse are in heterosexual relationships, people in same-sex or bi-sexual relationships were more likely to be victims of financial abuse than the rest of the population. In addition, those with a disability were also more likely to be victims of financial abuse in an intimate relationship. The 'My money, my life' campaign wanted to establish, for the first time, the true scale of financial abuse as it occurs within intimate relationships in the UK. While other forms of domestic violence are well documented, the use of money to exercise power within a relationship is not yet fully recognised. Yet the impact of this form of abuse – where financial control, exploitation or sabotage are used to control a person's ability to acquire, use and maintain financial resources – can be both devastating and long-lasting. The campaign was launched with the publication of a new research report ‘Money Matters’ which looked into the extent and nature of financial abuse in relationships in the UK. The research report combined a study of over 4,000 adults with academic analysis and qualitative research interviews undertaken with 20 survivors of domestic abuse who had accessed Refuge's specialist services. The Co-operative Bank and Refuge are now calling for a banking industry-wide agreement to support people who experience financial abuse in their relationships. Calling for the banking industry to ensure there is adequate and consistent support for the victims of financial abuse in relationships. Refuge has also produced a financial guide for women who have experienced financial abuse. But if you are the victim of financial abuse or have concerns about domestic violence, please visit the Refuge website for more information, guidance and help. And call 999 in an emergency.  |
| Posted: 11 Dec 2015 12:33 PM PST
Women's Aid groups in Scotland are dealing with around 25,000 new cases of women, children and young people needing support with domestic abuse a year, figures released recently show. Scottish Women's Aid's annual Census Day survey found 95 women and 11 children and young people reached out to a Women's Aid group for the first time on a single day in Scotland in 2015. The charity's researchers said the figure equated to 475 new cases every week, and up to 25,000 a year, but warned that this was a "conservative" estimate, and the true figure could be higher. The study also showed that more than 1000 women and children in Scotland are getting support from Women's Aid services on any given day, with 789 women and 384 children who experienced domestic abuse needing emotional support as well as information and assistance with practical issues, such as housing, safety planning, financial assistance and legal protection. The charity, which campaigns for effective responses to domestic abuse and women's rights in Scotland, said the findings "starkly demonstrate the continued, crucial need" for the advice, support, and protection that specialist domestic abuse services offer to women, children and young people. Each year since 2009, Scottish Women's Aid asks its 37 member groups for a snapshot of the use of their services in a 24-hour period. The number of new women and children needing help on that day has consistently remained around 100 for the past seven years. Other data collected includes the number of women and children currently living in refuge as well as the number of women and their children who sought, but couldn't get into, refuge accommodation on that day. This year, the survey took place on 17 September 2015. It found that: 347 women and 331 children and young people were living in a Women's Aid refuge; 33 women asked for a place in refuge, but a safe and suitable place could not be found for nine of them. At least two of the women who could not be accommodated on Census Day continued to live with an abusive partner. Ten women, and their seven children, stayed with friends, family or in temporary accommodation provided by the local authority; The study showed 1,137 women, children and young people get a broad range of support from Women's Aid, while living in refuge or through outreach and group work activities. The 24-hour snapshot of Women's Aid services across the country revealed that: Most of the women and children who received support were not living in refuge on that day; Most of the women and children needed practical help getting benefits or dealing with finances and legal issues, finding long-term housing and safety planning as well as emotional support; Police, friends and family and health care workers were most likely sources of referrals to Women's Aid; and 58 children and young people received support even though their mothers were not being supported by Women's Aid. Scottish Women's Aid's researcher, Dr Cheryl Sutherland Stewart, said: "We have carried out the Census Day survey in Scotland every year for seven years, and it is now clear that these figures consistently show that on any day, around 100 women are getting in touch with Women's Aid for the first time. "The yearly figure of 25,000 is a conservative estimate, because most groups operate reduced/emergency services on weekends so we don't include them in our figures." Dr Marsha Scott, Scottish Women's Aid's chief executive, said: "These figures were collected on one day in Scotland, a day much like any other day, sadly. "The findings starkly demonstrate the continued, crucial need for the advice, support, and recovery that specialist domestic abuse services offer to women. "On any given day in Scotland nearly 100 new women contact a Women's Aid service for help with domestic abuse. "What a symbol of fear, control, and resistance that number is. "The Women's Aid network does vital work: protecting women and children and helping them rebuild their lives, seeing and celebrating the strength and resilience survivors bring to living with domestic abuse, and improving the choices available. "Refuge spaces need to be available for women who need them. "Perhaps even more important, women and children need support to stay safely in their own homes or to do a planned move, and this support needs to be easy to access and what I like to call 'domestic abuse competent.' "Women and children need choices, autonomy, and the opportunity to control what happens to them. "The Census Day data makes explicit how important these needs are and how far we have to go before they are met." And Stewart added: "It is clear that Census Day could be any day, and that domestic abuse is a huge issue that continues to affect women and children throughout the country. "This is credible and consistent data that clearly demonstrates the continued need for the work of the Women's Aid network in Scotland."  |
| How Statement and Review affects women Posted: 11 Dec 2015 05:40 AM PST
The Women's Budget Group (WBG) has just published its comprehensive assessment of how the measures the Chancellor announced in the government’s joint Autumn Statement and Comprehensive Spending Review last month will affect women. Chancellor George Osborne, in his opening remarks to the Autumn Statement and Spending Review 2015, promised to 'put security first' and to 'leave to the next generation a stronger country than the one we inherited'. Yet with further cuts to the social infrastructure that will see public spending, as a proportion of national income, fall to nearly its lowest level since the war, the daily lives of many will be increasingly insecure. And yet again women stand to lose the most, and gain the least. The chancellor has reiterated his commitment to delivering a budget surplus by 2019/2020 and to achieving this largely through expenditure cuts, which, the analysis shows, have a disproportionate impact on women and those on low incomes, such as lone parents and female single pensioners. The main points of this analysis are: Overall fiscal targets and public spending priorities: commitment to achieve a budget surplus based on uncertain economic forecast and entrenched spending cuts. As expenditure as a share of GDP is set to be cut to its second lowest level since the end of the Second World War, even protected budgets such as health and education will see a fall in proportion of GDP. This is despite a commitment to increase the health budget over and above inflation, using savings elsewhere in public services. Further spending cuts were not a necessity to achieve such surplus. The total £24bn annual savings by 2019-20 in public services and social security spending are equivalent to the annual foregone revenue from the successive increases in the Personal Tax Allowance and other changes to the income tax bands (£18bn) and cuts in fuel and alcohol duties (£8bn) since 2010. No thorough gender impact assessment. The assessment produced along the Spending Review fails to adequately analyse the impact of social security and public service spending cuts on women despite existing methods that are straightforward to use. WBG’s own analysis shows that lone mothers and single female pensioners are set to lose most from the Spending Review decisions over this parliament, having already lost most from cuts announced in the previous parliament. In total, their living standards will be down by 10 per cent in 2020 due to real term cuts in public services, compared to just over 2 per cent for couples without children. Employment is up, but there are concerns about the quality and pay. The record high employment rate for women, including largest rise in full-time employment in the last three years, hides more entrenched gender inequalities. Unemployment has fallen less for women than for men since the recovery and is still higher than its pre-crisis level. But women still make up a majority of part-time employment, especially involuntary part-time, as well as temporary employees. They account for the largest share of the increase in self-employment since 2008, especially among lower paid occupations. The gender wage gap is down but has risen in the public sector since 2011. As earnings are still below their 2011 levels in real terms, the narrowing of the gender gap in pay is a story of continued downward convergence between men and women. Social security cuts failing families' opportunities and security. The July 2015 Budget set out the details of the annual £12bn social security spending cuts to achieve by 2019-20. The claim of a reversal of cuts to tax credits announced in this Autumn Statement are merely just postponing the full impact as tax credits will be replaced by universal credit by then, to which the July Budget cuts still fully apply. Even the implementation of the higher ‘National Living Wage’ will not do the trick as those who would benefit are not the same as those who would lose out. Women again take on the lion's share of the changes in tax-benefit policies. Of the £16bn net cumulative revenue in spending cuts and tax rises announced since the 2015 election, 75 per cent will be borne by women. Over the entire ten-year period of austerity, women will have borne 81 per cent of the consolidation in personal tax rises and cuts to social security spending between 2010-2020. Devolution will disadvantage poorer areas with the greatest needs of public services. The big revolution in allowing councils to raise more of their revenue locally, in particular by earmarking council tax rises to fund social care services, is bound to increase inequality in service provision as poorer areas with correspondingly greater needs of adequate public services will struggle to fill the gap left by withdrawal of central government funding. Even in the maximum scenario envisaged in the Office for Budget Responsibility‘s predictions, councils would at best manage (on average) to raise as much funding for local services as they currently do, despite already failing to meet current needs adequately. Social care will still receive inadequate funding. Changes to the system of funding for local government is perhaps the main issue of this Spending Review as far as social care services are concerned – so a stealth blow to the provision of decent and high quality services, with major providers already on the verge of withdrawing from the market for lack of sufficient funding. The additional £3.5bn earmarked in this Review (from extra funding going to the Better Care Fund and the maximum potential £2bn from the 2 per cent precept rise in the council tax) fails to compensate drastic cuts in central government funding and would hardly match the £8bn additional funding need that would be required by 2019-20 simply to match current delivery. Women again are set to suffer from the lack of proper investment in this part of the social infrastructure as primary unpaid caregivers who have to step in when services fail. Increased childcare provision is welcome but leaves many behind. The additional 15 hours of free childcare will only be available to those working a minimum of 16 hours a week at the National Living Wage (as will tax-free childcare), making it more difficult for many mothers to benefit, especially if they are young. Although the additional funding is welcome in principle, especially as it intends to increase the subsidy rate per place, overall public spending on childcare (including help with tax credits/Universal Credit) will remain roughly the same in proportion of GDP as it is now, thereby failing to achieve the ambition of investing in Britain's future as claimed by the Chancellor. Education – from public debt to private debt, and still no measures to address gender segregation. The further and higher education announcements were dominated by the removal of bursaries and grants, and their replacement with loans. This transfers responsibility (and risk) for funding education to individuals. Women, who are likely to earn less over their life-course, will be disproportionately impacted. The additional funding for apprenticeships, to be raised via a levy on employers, is welcome. However, it is disappointing that no measures have been put in place to tackle occupational segregation, which is marked in apprenticeships, and a significant contributor to the gender pay gap. Helping those at the margins of home ownership, not those most in need. Housing was one of the main areas to benefit from investment in the Spending Review. However, this has been directed primarily at 'help to buy' schemes and 'starter homes' that will benefit those at the margins of home ownership. While providing individual gain for some, these measures will not solve the housing crisis. Women predominate in the socially-rented sector and, as such, are less likely than men to benefit from these schemes. In fact, coupled with the cuts to housing benefit and reductions in the grants to housing associations, women are more likely to see their housing situation get worse, rather than improve, as a result of the Spending Review. Still failing to adequately invest in safer lives for women. While the Chancellor announced that domestic violence services would be among the beneficiaries of the 'tampon tax' and would additionally receive a dedicated £10m a year, this amount remains inadequate for services that have been hard hit by successive cuts. Worse still, some of the 29 per cent savings extracted from the DCLG in this Spending Review could translate into further cuts to Violence Against Women (VAW) services, despite the new funding announcements. Along with other commentators, we are also deeply concerned by the hypothecation of the 'tampon tax' for women's charities, particularly those related to domestic violence. Tackling domestic violence should be the responsibility of all in society. Using tax revenues from the sale of female sanitary products makes the funding of these services both symbolically and literally the responsibility of women, rather than the State or the men who are the main perpetrators of the violence. To read the full response, click here. Far from providing for 'security', the announcements in the Spending Review undermine the social infrastructure – social security, health, education, and care systems – that, when properly resourced, acts as a vital safety net. Women, as this briefing shows, are again bearing the brunt of the cuts. Pursuing deficit reduction in this way is a political choice, not a necessity. And as the Women's Budget Group has shown in successive briefings, there are alternatives that can lay the foundations for economic and social security. These requires a rebalancing to ensure that revenue is raised from those who can most afford to pay, rather than from those in most need, and public investment in a social security system and public services that can deliver a better future for all. In launching this response, the WBG's chair, Diane Elson, said: "The Chancellor promised to 'put security first'. "Yet our analysis shows that with further cuts to the social infrastructure that will see public spending, as a proportion of national income, fall to nearly its lowest level since the war, the daily lives of many will be increasingly insecure. "Even the protected budgets of health and school education will fall as a proportion of GDP by 2020. "Our analysis shows that female lone parent and single pensioner households will experience the biggest drop in living standards as a result of cuts to public services compared to other households. "This is in addition to analysis by the House of Commons library which shows that of the £16bn in savings announced since the 2015 general election, three quarter will come from women. "Pursuing deficit reduction in this way is a political choice, not a necessity. "There is an alternative," she said. "If the Chancellor wants to, as he pledges, leave the next generation a 'stronger country than we inherited', he must invest in the social security and public services that provide such a vital safety net."  |
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