My hon. Friend makes a good point, but I am not sure that I can do as he asks, because this is a thorny issue. My hon. Friend has a great advantage over me, in that not only is he experienced in legal matters—which I certainly am not—but for many years he was a member of the Council of Europe. I hope that we may benefit from some of his expertise later, when he may, in passing, be able to answer his own question, which I am not able to do.
The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North tabled an early-day motion on this subject, which read:
“That this House notes that 8 June 2016 marks the fourth anniversary of the UK Government becoming a signatory to the Istanbul Convention on violence against women and girls; expresses disappointment that the Government, despite outlining their commitment to do so several times, has still failed to ratify this important convention; recognises that women still face a significant amount of inequality, with one in four women experiencing some form of domestic, sexual or psychological abuse during their lifetimes; further notes that ratifying the Istanbul Convention should ensure that a series of preventative policies will be introduced to help tackle and end violence against women, such as non-violent conflict resolution in relationships and the right to personal
integrity being included in school curricula at all levels; congratulates the campaign group ICchange for their continuing work in applying pressure on the Government to ratify the convention; and calls on the Government to accede to this pressure and ensure ratification as soon as possible.”
There are a couple of interesting things to note about that motion. First, when I last looked it had 47 signatories, so despite the contention by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan that the House was unanimous in its support for her proposal, that unanimous support does not seem to have found its way there. Secondly, notwithstanding Members’ attempts to do a bit of back-tracking now, and to start saying that they care about violence against men as well—they offered no such views in the speeches we heard earlier— the EDM lets the cat out of the bag. Those Members do not care about violence against men. The EDM makes no mention of violence against men. It is all about violence against women. Let us not try to pretend now, at this late stage, that this is about gender neutrality; it is not, and people obviously know that it is not.
There is an awful lot to the convention—far more than I intend to go into today; I am sure Members will be relieved to hear that. Although I am sure that I would be deemed to be in order if I went into all of it, I want to hear from other speakers. Given that the Bill requires the ratification of the convention, however, it is all very relevant, and I want to put on record some of the key facts that it contains.
The Council of Europe’s website sets out the position. It says:
“In simple terms, preventing violence against women and domestic violence can save lives and reduce human suffering. Governments that agree to be bound by the Convention will have to do the following: train professionals in close contact with victims; regularly run awareness-raising campaigns; take steps to include issues such as gender equality and non-violent conflict resolution in interpersonal relationships in teaching material; set up treatment programmes for perpetrators of domestic violence and for sex offenders; work closely with NGOs; involve the media and the private sector in eradicating gender stereotypes and promoting mutual respect.”
That last bit sounds a bit like media censorship to me, but I am not entirely sure what the Council of Europe has in mind.
“Preventing violence against women and domestic violence should not be left to the state alone. In fact, the Convention calls on all members of society, in particular men and boys, to help reach its goal of creating a Europe free from all forms of violence against women and domestic violence. Violence against women is pervasive because misogynistic attitudes towards women persist. Each and every one of us can help challenge gender stereotypes, harmful traditional practices and discrimination against women. It is only by achieving real gender equality that violence against women can be prevented.”
It is clear that the convention goes well beyond trying to combat violence against women, and has a much wider remit than people would have us believe.
The website goes on to say:
“When preventive measures have failed and violence incidents have happened, it is important to provide victims and witnesses with protection and support. This means police intervention and protection as well as specialised support services such as shelters, telephone hotlines etc. It also means making sure that general social services understand the realities and concerns of victims of domestic violence and violence against women and support them accordingly in their quest to rebuild/resume their lives.
Some examples of measures set forth in the Convention include:
Granting the police the power to remove a perpetrator of domestic violence from his or her home: In situations of immediate danger, the police need to be able to guarantee the safety of the victim. In many instances this may mean ordering the perpetrator for a specified period of time to leave the family home and to stay away from the victim.
Ensuring access to adequate information…victims are usually traumatised and need easy access to clear and concise information on available services, in a language they understand.
Setting up easily accessible shelters in sufficient numbers and in an adequate geographical distribution: Victims come from a wide range of social realities. For instance, women from rural areas or disabled women need to have access to shelters as much as women from big cities.”
There is not one mention of a male victim of domestic violence. In a moment I shall say something about the supply of refuges for men and women, because I think it important to establish the extent to which the Government are fulfilling that requirement.
The website continues:
“Making available state-wide 24/7 telephone helplines free of charge: Specialised helplines for victims of violence against women and domestic violence can direct the victims to the services they need…
Setting-up easily accessible rape crisis or sexual violence referral centres: These centres provide immediate medical counselling, trauma care and forensic services and are extremely rare across Europe. It is important to make these services more widely available.
It should be borne in mind that it is not enough to set up protection structures and support services for victims. It is equally important to make sure victims are informed of their rights and know where and how to get help.”
I absolutely agree that victims should be better protected and have more of a voice in the justice system, but as far as I am concerned that applies to male victims as much as it does to female victims. When it comes to domestic violence, it is actually male victims who have the least support, not female ones.
An Office for National Statistics report from February 2016 on violent crime and sexual offences relating to the year ending March 2015 states:
“Overall, 27.1% of women and 13.2% of men had experienced any domestic abuse since the age of 16, equivalent to an estimated 4.5 million female victims and 2.2 million male victims.”
Those are shocking figures. New data from the ONS for the year ending March 2016 found that, of those who said that they had experienced domestic abuse, 1.2 million were female and 651,000 were male. As I established earlier, of every three victims of domestic abuse, two will be female and one will be male. Yet despite that split of two thirds and one third—we must all agree on that; they are the official figures and I have not heard anybody argue against them—there is absolutely no such funding split. Perhaps the Minister will explain why.
According to the Mankind Initiative:
“20 organisations offer refuge or safe house provision for male victims in the UK—a total of 82 spaces, of which 24 are dedicated to male DV victims only (the rest being for victims of either gender).”
Men have a chance of accessing only 82 spaces, only 24 of which—in the whole country—are guaranteed for them. The Mankind Initiative continues:
“For female victims, there are nearly 400 specialist domestic violence organisations providing refuge accommodation for women in the UK with c4,000 spaces for over 7,000 women and children.”
Two thirds of victims of domestic violence are women and a third are men, but there are 7,000 places in refuges for women and a maximum of 82 for men. How can that possibly be gender neutral or fair? I genuinely want to know why people think that that can possibly be fair, if we are genuinely interested in being gender neutral. Of course, we know that many people are not interested in being gender neutral.
It is interesting, too, that male victims are much less likely to come forward than female victims, which again suggests that it is male victims who need more encouragement. According to the Mankind Initiative:
“Male victims (29%) are over twice as likely than women (12%) to not tell anyone about the partner abuse they are suffering from. Only 10% of male victims will tell the police (26% women), only 23% will tell a person in an official position (43% women) and only 11% (23% women) will tell a health professional.”
On discussing sexual abuse during childhood, the recent Ministry of Justice report, “Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System 2015”, states:
“12% of female victims and 25% of males told someone they knew personally about childhood sexual assault by rape or penetration (including attempts) at the time, usually a family member (18%). Only 10% of female victims told someone in an official position, with 8% reporting the abuse to the police. Only 2% of male victims reported the abuse to the police.”
Although sexual abuse is an absolutely huge issue among girls, with only 30% of victims telling anyone at all, it is also an issue among boys, but it is being massively under-reported, with only 27% of victims telling anyone, and only 2% telling the police.
The convention’s position on the prosecution of perpetrators is interesting, too. The Council of Europe says:
“The convention defines and criminalises the various forms of violence against women as well as domestic violence. This is one of the many achievements of the convention. To give effect to the convention, state parties will have to introduce a number of new offenses where they do not exist. These may include: psychological and physical violence, sexual violence and rape, stalking, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, forced abortion and forced sterilisation. In addition, state parties will need to ensure that culture, tradition or so-called ‘honour’ are not regarded as a justification for any of the above-listed courses of conduct.”
I am not sure how we deal with psychological violence, but most of those offences can have male victims, too. That does not include female genital mutilation, obviously, as that clearly relates only to females, and male circumcision is still considered to be legal. In the case of a forced abortion, which on the face of it is a female issue, if the person doing the forcing is not the father, there is potentially a father who is the victim of a lost child, so it is not just the woman who might suffer in that situation.
According to figures obtained by the Mankind Initiative:
“Of those that suffered partner abuse in 2014/15, a higher proportion of men suffered from force (37%) than women (29%). For emotional and psychological abuse the proportions were 61% and 63% respectively.”
There is not a fat lot in it, as it happens. There is almost exactly the same number of male victims of psychological abuse as female victims.
On the issue of psychological abuse of children, the recent MOJ reports states:
“Of those who experienced psychological abuse as a child, the perpetrator was most likely to have been the victim’s mother (40%) or father (35%). Women were more likely to have experienced this form of abuse from their mothers (42%) than fathers (33%), whereas men were equally likely to be abused by either parent.”
The matter of actual violence and injury is also interesting. The Mankind Initiative states:
“Of those that suffered from partner abuse in 2012/13, 29% of men and 23% of women suffered a physical injury, a higher proportion of men suffering severe bruising or bleeding (6%) and internal injuries or broken bones/teeth (2%) than women (4% and 1% respectively). 30% of men who suffer partner abuse have emotional and mental problems (47% women). Only 27% of men sought medical advice whilst 73% of women did.”
This Bill would ensure the ratification of a convention that does nothing to address domestic violence against men, just women.
I want briefly to mention the other offences that might, on the face of it, seem to apply only to women. Government figures show that one in every five victims of forced marriage is a man. In 2013, there were 234 cases of forced marriage in the UK where the victim was a man. On stalking, which many will no doubt assume involves a man stalking a woman, 2.4% of men and 4.9% of women experienced stalking in 2014-15. Again, of every three victims of stalking, two are women and one is a man.
The Council of Europe says:
“Once these new offenses have found their way into the national legal systems, there is no reason not to prosecute offenders. On the contrary, state parties will have to take a range of measures to ensure the effective investigation of any allegation of violence against women and domestic violence.”
It does not say that state parties will have to take a range of measures to ensure the effective investigation of violence against men. It seems to me that that does not matter to the Council of Europe. It goes on:
“This means that the law enforcement agencies will have to respond to calls for help, collect evidence and assess the risk of further violence to adequately protect the victim.
Furthermore, state parties will have to carry out judicial proceedings in a manner that respects the rights of victims at all stages of the proceedings and that avoid secondary victimisation.”
In February 2015, the Joint Committee on Human Rights published a report, “Violence against Women and Girls”, on the UK’s progress towards ratification of the convention. Again, the report is about violence against women and girls, with nothing about violence against men and boys. I do not know what anybody else thinks, but if the son of somebody in this House is the victim of violence, would they consider that to be less important than if their daughter was a victim of violence? I would like hon. Members to explain why they think violence against their sons would be less important. We may hear about that from other Members later, but we have not so far.