Opening Comments from the Chair
Roseanna Cunningham, M P
I am honoured to be asked to Chair this Conference.
We have very distinguished company and I am glad to see people from
such a wide range of organisations present today.
Tackling an issue like domestic violence absolutely requires a
co-ordinated response from across the spectrum. Without that, we
will have little chance of making the kind of progress I assume
we all want.
It is going to be a busy day for everyone but I hope a productive
one too - because domestic violence is a crime which society has
only very recently come to take seriously and we still seem to
have difficulty dealing with it. It seems surprising to me that
this should be so and shameful too - more shameful for all of us
that it is still so endemic despite the withdrawal of society's,
shall we say, neutrality.
But I fear that society still finds it hard to judge harshly
when confronted by men who vent their anger on women. The noise
generated by a violent assault taking place can still fall on
deaf ears even in the poshest of hotels - confronted by the
visible evidence of black eyes and broken limbs and the
absolutely harsh reality of the result of such an assault, we as
a society can still find it possible to accord a place to the
men who carry out such abuse. We wish it were not so - but still
we hear the view that such matters are private matters. That the
knowledge of them should not affect the man's employment or job
prospects or prominent position and status in the community.
While we now do recognise the crime for what it is, there is still
a reluctance to intervene. And there is little point simply
blaming the police if the rest of us affect deafness and
blindness when we are confronted with the evidence.
Now I know that no-one here is included in that group. But we would
be kidding ourselves if we did not recognise the complexities of
dealing with domestic violence. It strikes right at the heart of
the one institution we have all been raised to think of as
synonymous with safety. And the echoes of it can be heard down
the generations.
Recently, a report was released dealing with the residents of
Cornton Vale Prison. I get asked to comment on a lot of such
reports so little surprises me any more. However, this one did.
Bad as I knew things were I will own up to being utterly
astonished at the number of the women in that prison who were
themselves victims of crime - or survivors as I know some might
prefer to term it. 70% having suffered emotional abuse, 60%
having suffered physical abuse and 50% having suffered sexual
abuse - the abuse usually started when they were young and
continued into their adulthood even if the identity of the
perpetrator changed. And having been the victims of crime, now
they were themselves committing crime. That we have people in
our society who live in a world where a life such as this is the
norm seems to me to be a disgrace.
I don't want to sound too gloomy. I know that there is much good
work being done by a whole variety of agencies. Whether it be
the Zero Tolerance Campaign pioneered in Edinburgh or the high
profile campaign announced recently by Strathclyde Police there
are many initiatives set up to tackle the problem. If there is
one danger, it may be that the various initiatives don't mesh in
any meaningful way - and that is one reason why a conference
such as this can become so important. It is easy to work in
isolation and come up with ideas which in themselves may be
perfectly legitimate but which contradict work in other areas.
If you think I am sounding a bit critical here you would be right.
There is some concern already being expressed at the political
level about the Diversion from Prosecution Scheme which has been
announced recently. I hope to hear some discussion of that
Scheme today and some consideration of how it might impact
specifically on domestic violence because it does appear to me
to run the danger of cutting across the work being done
elsewhere.
Equally, I hope to hear of ways in which we might set about
tackling another worrying trend revealed by yet another recent
report - the one into young people’s attitudes, particularly
young men’s attitudes to violence towards women.
Now I don’t claim to be an expert - most of you here today have
more right to that title than I do - but I simply cannot
understand how it comes about that in 1998 we still have
not achieved a situation where at least the next
generation would be beginning to shake off the complacency of
the previous generations.
We surely can’t lay all the blame at the door of the education
system, but it is clear that that is one place where we will
have to tackle it.
In my view, the time has come where some kind of civics and legal
education must be taught in our schools. Obviously this would
require to cover considerably more ground that just issues of
domestic violence - neither will it be a panacea - but it should
be one component put in place now to engender an understanding
of how criminality is not the glamorous preserve of the big
screen.
The series of adverts which ran on our TV screens in the not too
distant past were an excellent way of doing just that - but I
can’t help feeling that brief campaigns may only work briefly.
The problem, as everywhere, is the question of how to resource
longer term campaigns - whether they be police campaigns or not.
It seems to be rare now to get a truly national campaign and
without that we are left with the vagaries of more local funding
and more local decision making.
I don’t want to attack the merits of decentralisation - but in some
policy areas it will not work. Rape Crisis Centres are funded in
some areas but not in others. Women’s Refuges kept open in some
areas - starved of funds in others.
It is arguable now that responsibility for maintaining and building
on existing resources should be gathered into one set of hands
so that we can get consistency of provision across the board.
I hope that this is one way in which the advent of a Scottish
Parliament will make a difference. We have the advantage of a
small country and a compact population.
With that in mind I am going to make a plea, the same plea I make
to all bodies I speak to. Don’t get caught out by ignoring the
timescales for :
-
the setting up of the Scottish Parliament
-
the setting of manifesto priorities
-
the horse trading, post-election
Remember too,
-
It is an absolute requirement to start
lobbying hard, now, with clear proposals.
-
Lobby all parties - the old certainties
are gone.
Perhaps in Scotland we can make a difference.
Next
