Women’s Policy Group Joint Written Response to Call for Views

In March, Raise Your Voice collaborated with colleagues in the Women’s Policy Group to respond to a call for views on two strategies; the Domestic and Sexual Abuse Strategy and the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy. You can read the full WPG response to the Call for Views below.

In preparation for this, we launched a survey to take the views of the public into account, and we received 1,065 responses in a short time. These responses were so detailed and so striking that we have since produced a full report on this research, which will be formally launched in June and is available to read below.

Some of the key findings from the report are as follows:

·       91.2% of women think that Northern Ireland has a problem with men’s violence against women and girls.

·       97.2% of women think that Northern Ireland should have a strategy to tackle men’s violence against women and girls.

·       83% of women have been impacted by men’s violence against women and girls but only 21.4% reported this to the police

·       77.4% of women who reported men’s violence to the police did not find it useful.

·       82% of women first experienced men’s violence before the age of 20.

·       89.7% of women believe Northern Ireland has a problem with attitudes of sexism and misogyny.

·       80.8% of women believe Northern Ireland has a problem with rape myths and rape culture

·       87.4% of women believe Northern Ireland has a problem with victim-blaming

·       81.2% of women believe there is stigma surrounding issues of violence against women and girls.

·       92.3% of women think that there are barriers to reporting men’s violence against women and girls.

·       95.2% of women think that reducing levels of violence against women and girls requires focusing on changing men and boys’ behaviours and actions.

·       78.6% of women think that additional action needs to be taken in this strategy to address men’s violence against marginalised groups of women.

·       86.8% of women think that there needs to be a review of how the justice system treats victims and survivors of men’s violence against women and girls.

·       83.4% of women believe that state violence against women and girls should be included within this Strategy.

These responses highlighted the urgency of the work we are doing at Raise Your Voice, they were clear that the key is in prevention and in tackling the attitudes that make this behaviour so prevalent and so damaging. We have since presented on this evidence to the TEO Committee and will soon present it to the PSNI also. At the moment we are planning our work for the new Assembly mandate, and we will be continuing to push for legislative changes that meet our needs as well as a fit for purpose and fully resourced set of Strategies to tackle these endemic issues.