Violence Against Women and girls - creating integrated approaches: a case study from the UK
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Violence Against Women and girls -
creating integrated approaches: a
case study from the UK
Prof Liz Kelly
Roddick Chair on Violence Against Women
London Metropolitan University
In a nutshell
• How a civil society coalition has influenced policy using
gender analysis
• Definitions and perspective
– Gender-based violence/violence against women
– Human rights and gender equality
• Why an integrated approach
– Connections
– What is lost and what is gained
• The End Violence Against Women Coalition
– Work of the campaign
– Recent government and agency responses in the UK
1
Words and meanings
• Violence against women
• Men’s violence against women
• Gender violence
• Gender based violence
• Family violence
• Need to be aware that have different meanings and are
located in discourses with implicit analyses
Definition and perspective
• … the term “violence against women” is understood to
mean any act of gender-based violence that is directed
against a woman because she is a woman or that
affects women disproportionately.
• The term “women” is used to cover females of all ages,
including girls under the age of 18
• VAW is manifested in a continuum of multiple,
interrelated and sometimes recurring forms… physical,
sexual and psychological/emotional violence and
economic abuse and exploitation, experienced in a
range of settings, from private to public, and in today’s
globalized world, transcending national boundaries.
(UN Secretary General’s Report on VAW, 2006,para 28 and 104)
2
VAW as continuum
• ‘a basic common character that underlies many different
events’ – the many forms of coercion, abuse and assault that
are used to control women (Kelly, 1987)
• ‘a continuous series of elements or events that pass into one
another and cannot be readily distinguished’ – sexual
harassment/assault/rape; smuggling/trafficking
• Connects the horrific with the everyday
• incest as an exaggeration of patriarchal family norms (Herman, 1981)
• rape as the end point of ‘socially sanctioned continuum of male sexual
aggression’ (Marolla and Scully, 1979)
• Women learn to discount and minimise both as a way of
coping but also because much VAW is normalised with
gender orders
Continuum in women’s lives
• Most women recall at least one incident of intimate intrusion in
their lifetime and many report multiple experiences
– Most common form of VAW is sexual harassment
– Continuum within CSA, within IPV
• Single/multiple incidents
• Disturbing → life-threatening/fatal
– Repeat victimisation by the same perpetrator
– Repeat victimisation by different perpetrators
• Becoming a ‘legitimate target’ ‘spoiled goods’, reputation and ‘honour’
• Some women are ‘worth less’ than others
• Victimisation as negative cultural capital
3
FORMS of VAW
• Physical violence and its threat
• Rape and sexual assault
– As girls and adult women
• Sexual harassment
• Femicide
– including honour killings, domestic homicide, sexual murder
• Trafficking and sexual exploitation
• Harmful traditional practices - FGM, child/forced marriage,
honour based violence
• Less documented forms
– acid attacks, ritual abuse
Conducive CONTEXTS
• Family and intimate relationships
• Communities (neighbours, friends)
• Workplace, college, school
• Public space
• Conflict and transitions
• Migration
• Institutions (including being in custody)
• Sex industries
4
The international context
• International commitments
– Beijing Platform for Action
– CEDAW
– Council of Europe and EU
• Commission of the Status of Women report for 2005
– Governments should accelerate their efforts towards
implementation of comprehensive strategies against violence
against women, adequately funded and with a clear time frame.
(para 238)
– National strategies of plans of action will be major instruments for
combating violence against women. (Para 753)
• Requires addressing violence as a gender equality and human rights
issue
– Secretary Generals report on VAW, 2006
VAW and human rights
… equality is only achieved if women can enjoy
and exercise all fundamental rights and
freedoms such as mobility, freedom of speech,
freedom to decide and organise, the right to
sexual and reproductive autonomy, to personal
security, to own assets, to work and earn income
and to be recognised as full members of society.
(UN expert group on Beijing and the MDGS, 2005 para 65, p17)
5
Some observations
• VAW has not – until recently – been a necessary element in
international or national gender equality measurements/
indicators
• Reporting on to CEDAW by states often limited
• Extensive academic knowledge base, but often disconnected
from women’s/gender studies
– BUT VAW offers a point of entry into debates on agency/empowerment;
health; law and crime (crimes of dominion); human security;
intersectionality; capabilities
• Nordic countries are always at the top of equality indices, yet
they have as high – some would argue higher – levels of VAW as
lower ranked countries
– Relative independence of VAW and/or VAW as resistance to
equality
Connections: Common frameworks 1
• Human rights
– state responsibilities to uphold, protect and address
violations
– dignity and bodily integrity
– right to highest possible standards of physical and
mental health
– access to justice
– support and ‘rehabilitative’ services
6
Connections: Common frameworks 2
• Gender analysis
– Patterns of victimisation and offending
– Offending across categories
– Repeat victimisation
• Power and control
– Could adapt power and control wheel for all forms of VAW
• Relationship to perpetrators – primarily known men
• Not exceptional – routine and everyday
– ‘safety work’ for all women in everyday routines
• Attrition and impunity
• Inadequate and inconsistent institutional responses
• Women’s movement creativity
Connections: consequences
• UN ‘a cause and consequence of women’s inequality’
• Is a barrier to women’s equality at practical and symbolic levels
– Limits ‘space for action’ – public space and participation
– Costs in lost opportunities
• Symbolic meanings
– barriers to disclosure, under-reporting
– worth less than men and other women – negative social capital
• Not just physical injury, damage to sense of self, safety and connections to
others
– betrayals of trust, breaking social connections
– relational self – Susan Brison
• Survival and coping strategies
– ‘violence work’ that victim-survivors have to do just to ‘get by’, let alone rebuild
their lives and sense of self
– Trajectories for many into drug misuse, criminality, mental health problems and
suicide
7
Changing the discourse
Considerable policy and practice
development in the UK, but primary focus
was domestic violence and criminal
justice responses. Law and policy
increasingly gender neutral
STEP 1
• Partnership with
Women’s National
Commission
• 2005, making the
case
• Women who have
multiple experiences
• Men who offend
across categories
• Mainstreaming VAW
into other policies
• Case studies
8
STEP 2: End Violence Against Women Campaign
• VAW sector has been fragmented across forms of violence
and unresolved debates
– Understandable pre-occupation on survival of services
• Limited campaigning
– Loss of vision that point is ‘elimination’
– Little work linking nations and regions
• EVAW = space for thinking, action and campaigning
– Creating consensus, a collective and coherent voice
– ‘Ending’ as goal and core
• An unprecedented coalition of 50 service providers,
organisations and individuals
– Across the nations and regions and forms of violence
– Plus Trade Union Congress, Amnesty UK and the Women’s Institute
9
Making the Grade
• Yearly audit of government departments on VAW
• Three to date, 2005, 2006, 2007
• 20 questions, responses scored by NGOs
• Low scores overall
– many departments not seeing VAW as relevant to them, saw as
‘crime’ issue
– Some departments active and engaged
– Inconsistent definitions
– Limited link with gender equality
– Minimal prevention
• Mixed reception, but by year 3 those who scored higher
began claiming success
10• Establishment of a
‘single equality body’
with responsibilities for
human rights
• The Equality and
Human Rights
Commission (EHRC)
• Intervention at the
beginning that
violence is an
equalities issue
11The Gender Equality Duty
• The Equality Act 2006: all public bodies shall in carrying out its
functions have due regard to the need to
– eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment
– and promote equality of opportunity between men and women
• Set gender equality objective in a three year Gender Equality
Scheme – based on evidence and consultation
• Carry out gender impact assessment on all policy
• Report annually and renew every three years
• Enforceable by the EHRC
– VAW taken up as key (in)equality indicator
12Map of Gaps: Methodology
• Data collection
– Questionnaire distributed to service providers
– Liaison with umbrella organisations
– Published listings of services
– Internet searches
• Data geocoded at local authority level
• No fail safe methodology – no absolute accuracy
• Existence of a service tells us about only one part of
availability, nothing about capacity
• Does reveal what happens if over focus on particular
forms
13Scotland: a different story
• More equal distribution of provision
• Only part of the UK where there has been an expansion
of Rape Crisis Centres.
• Glasgow – the most diverse provision across the UK
• Scottish Executive (now Government) took strategic
approach
– recognition that violence is a cause and
consequence of women’s inequality
– commitment to enhancing capacity and diversity of
provision, through a national fund
• Change of government delayed their integrated
approach
14Map of Gaps London
• Creation of a template
strategy, 2008
• Organised around the 6 p’s
• Perspective, policy,
prevention, provision,
protection, prosecution
• Perspective – human rights
and gender equality
• Provided examples of
mainstreaming – showing
how VAW linked to core
policy priorities for
government departments eg
child poverty, teenage
pregnancy, productivity
15A fractured response
• Over emphasis on prosecution, overlapping policies, prevention
an ‘add on’
An integrated approach
A balance across the 6 p’s
Perspective comes first – human rights, gender equality
Integrated policy with UN definition
Prevention at centre, followed by provision and protection
Prosecution at the end, as majority never reach here
16• Issued March 8th 2009
• Locates as an equality
and human rights issue
• Works from UN definition
• Commits to prevention
and support alongside
criminal justice
• All women’s safety and
all forms of VAW
17What has been learnt
• Importance of coalition, strong voice
– Gender analysis for the 21st century
• Strong evidence base
• Different ways of making the same argument
– Providing resources that make campaigning easy
• Finding allies within government
– Being useful
• The mapping project – visualisation – had a huge
impact and was welcomed by the women’s VAW sector
• The more impact/coherence/persuasive the more others
come on board/use ideas
• Small is beautiful, but very hard work!
All publications can be accessed at:
www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk
The mapping project
www.mapofgaps.org
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