Whose side are we on?,

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:48:22 +0000

by Jon Collins

The causes of violence against women are complex, but we can all agree that we're against it. Can't we?

Unfortunately, it is not as simple as that. I don't think that you'd find many people claiming that they are ‘for' domestic violence. Yet 1 in 4 women in the UK will experience an act of domestic violence at some point in her lifetime. 42% of young people aged 16-20 know girls who have been hit by their boyfriends. That's a lot of bruises and broken bones. That's two deaths a week, every week.

Jon Collins is Senior Policy Officerfor Women and Justice at the Fawcett Society

But, these women, they're not us. Right? Well, who are ‘they' then? They've got friends, families and colleagues. Somebody sits next to them at work, somebody lives next door. And it could be you. Even celebrity, the ultimate modern defensive shield from real life, is no protection. Remember Ulrika Jonsson? As with victims, it is comforting to think that perpetrators are nobody we know. Comforting but unrealistic - there are 12.9 million incidents of domestic violence against women every year and somebody does the kicking and the punching.

So it happens, but there is no excuse for it. We all know that. Except, in a 2003 survey, only 60% of respondents agreed that ‘domestic violence is not acceptable under any circumstances'. What was the other 40% thinking? Meanwhile 49% agreed that ‘domestic violence is behind closed doors and should be for the partners to sort out themselves'. 78% reported that they would intervene by calling the RSPCA or police if they knew someone was kicking and mistreating their dog, yet only 53% said that they would intervene by calling the police if they knew someone was kicking and mistreating their partner. Do we care more about pets than people?

And it's not just domestic violence. Nobody is ‘for' rape, surely. Yet at least 47,000 women are raped every year in the UK. That's as many women as live in Maidstone, Basingstoke or Bath. That's a lot of rapists. And it doesn't end there. An estimated 1,000 British Asian girls are forced into marriage against their will each year. This can not be excused by culture or religion. It's violence, and should be treated as such. Yet many see this as a private matter, or even an acceptable cultural institution. A problem for ‘them' but not for us. Human-trafficking, prostitution and so-called honour crimes. They go on around us and yet we allow them to continue.

It's a depressing picture, but it's the reality. As a society we can't claim that we deplore violence against women, when it is so prevalent. We can't claim to be against it when at best most people are indifferent. As Johann Hari argued recently, it is hard to believe that such a situation would continue if its victims were men. Yet violence against women is not a political priority, despite the best efforts of a minority of, mostly female, MPs. In an age of a strategy for everything, we don't even have a national strategy to tackle it.

Clearly, more has to be done. But we can't solve the problems of violence against women by training the police and tweaking the law. To tackle violence we need to tackle gender inequality and we need to put prevention first by making learning about violence against women an integral part of our education system. Because only when gender equality is a reality and violence against women really is seen as unacceptable can it ever be stamped out.

open Democracy News Analysis - Whose side are we on?, - Comments

Whose side are we on?,