The Guardian view on women’s refuges: they’re life savers
More than a million people, most of them women, reported domestic abuse to the police last year according to the latest figures from the ONS. The “hidden crime” is slowly starting to emerge from behind locked doors and curtained windows. All the same, it is estimated that no more than half of all offences are reported, while successful prosecutions are still in a minority because so many victims have not yet found the security to feel able to bring charges. Most tragic are the women who die at the hands of their violent partners: two deaths a week, often foreseeable and therefore preventable. The first step is to find a place where victim and children can feel safe. But, as the Guardian reported, new proposals on funding threaten the future of the very refuges that are best able to offer shelter and security.
Last month, the Department for Communities and Local Government set out plans to take away the entitlement to housing benefit from women using refuges and instead to give councils a ringfenced amount to be spent on all forms of shortstay supported housing. The policy paper recognises the particular problems of providing shelter for domestic abuse victims who often need to flee hundreds of miles to escape their partner. It argues it would be more efficient to have a stock of emergency housing available for people made homeless for any cause. But as our report on the shocking experience of one woman showed, accommodation that was supposedly suitable for any homeless person was quite unsuitable for children or for her, a victim of abuse.
Councils say they want the opportunity to test different solutions. They point to the need to deal with the perpetrator, and the unfairness of forcing the victim to flee. They argue that it is much better to invest in services to prevent abuse than it is to pick up the pieces afterwards. All this is true, but it is not happening. Already a 10th of domestic violence services don’t receive funding from their local authority at all. It is all too easy to cut funding for victims of a crime that happens out of sight.
It is also all too easy to withdraw entirely from funding refuges: victims usually flee their home town and become the responsibility of other councils. The government proposals do include the (non-statutory) obligation to provide spaces for victims of domestic abuse, but the emphasis is on the value of local knowledge to meet local need – and that often translates into widely varying levels of provision. Theresa May, the prime minister, and Amber Rudd, the home secretary, have both emphasised their concern to improve protection for abuse victims. Part of the strategy on violence against women and girls includes a separate review of services for them, which does not conclude for another year. Nationalising the network of women’s refuges is one idea.
That would make it easier to make sure there was an accessible place of safety in every community, regardless of the attitude of the local authority. It would ensure equal and transparent funding; outside organisations could monitor spending levels and MPs could hold ministers accountable. It is a policy development that organisations such as Women’s Aid believe could make a real difference to the lives of hundreds of thousands of women and children. Local services for local needs are often best. But some problems demand a national strategy. This is one of them.
This article was amended on Tuesday 28 November to clarify the number of domestic violence services receiving local authority funding