Written - Ongoing Work in Wales to Prevent Violence Against Women

This Cabinet Statement is provided in order to up-date Members on work to prevent violence against women in Wales.

In Wales our underlying approach continues to make the links between domestic abuse and the wider issue of violence against women, while recognising that men can also be the vicitims of violence in a domestic setting.

Women remain overwhelmingly the victims of domestic violence and this is reflected in both our funding and profile of service delivery. Against that background, work is already well advanced on a new strategic action plan to underpin the future delivery of the Welsh Domestic Abuse Strategy. This delivery plan will acknowledge the wider and distinctive need to address violence against women. It will build on the discreet strands of work already in place which are aimed at tackling the wider violence against women agenda and which are not catered for in our domestic abuse services.

Details of the progress that has been made include:-

• The Budget for this important work has increased sevenfold since 2002 and now stands at £3.7million for 2009/10. Last year, an additional £1.5million in capital funding was announced. 
• We are currently supporting 16 projects across Wales including two domestic abuse telephone help-lines, domestic abuse co-ordinators in every part of Wales, 5 new Domestic Abuse One Stop Shops and we are supporting eight peripatetic children’s workers and a co-ordinator to support children and young people in refuges.
• The All Wales Schools Programme, which includes a module on domestic abuse, is now operating in 97% of primary and secondary schools in Wales. Tai Hafan who support the Schools Programme are widely distributing a spectrum pack to schools in Wales to raise awareness of domestic abuse. We will shortly be issuing updated domestic abuse guidance to schools.
• We have six SARCs in Wales located in Merthyr Tydfil, Colwyn Bay, Carmarthen, Risca, Cardiff and Swansea. We have provided funds for vital new equipment and for a booklet to raise awareness about sexual violence. Most SARCs provide long-term therapeutic counselling services to victims of sexual violence.
• The Minister for Health and Social Services has established a cross-departmental working group to ensure there is proper engagement by the health service on the development of SARCs in Wales. We have introduced care pathways in maternity and accident and emergency settings.
• We are delivering a forced marriage and honour based crime action plan and will shortly be issuing new guidance to health, social services and education professionals. We support specialist BME services for women in Swansea, Cardiff, Newport and Wrexham.
• We have been working with the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and the Police to have a network of Multi- agency Risk assessment Conferences (MARACs) and 10 Specialist Domestic Violence Courts (SDVCs) across the country to provide support for victims at different stages of the criminal justice system and beyond. 
• We are developing a safe house for women fleeing prostitution including trafficked women in South Wales and developing a new refuge for victims with complex needs in Blaenau Gwent. 
• We regularly run campaigns to raise awareness about domestic abuse and violence against women. We ran a campaign over the recent Christmas period and have endorsed the campaign that the Welsh Rugby Union and the police are running during the current 6 nations championship.

There are parts of the violence against women agenda, (and indeed the domestic abuse agenda), that are not devolved.   We will therefore continue to work with the UK Government on these issues and we will be examining carefully any of the proposals that emerge from their consultation and the relevance for our Welsh action plan. In particular we will continue to work with Whitehall on matters such as honour violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation.   The Home Office will therefore be attending a workshop that we are organising in Newport on 10 March to ensure that the views of Welsh stakeholders are reflected in their consultation. I hope it is clear from this that Wales is not, in any way “opting out” of the UK government consultation on examining the need for a violence against women strategy.

I would also like to take this opportunity to set the record straight in respect of the recently published Map of Gaps 2 report.  The report acknowledges the good work taking place in Wales and this is borne out by an analysis of the data. In many respects services in Wales are more developed than in either Scotland or England. Given that the report is explicitly about “gaps in services” its focus was obviously not concentrated on the progress that has been made in Wales in tackling domestic abuse and violence against women. As well, the report is not fully up to date in respect of Wales in a number of instances, and these discrepancies have been drawn to the attention of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.