MORNING SERIAL
THESE services had just been hit with a triple whammy of being unable to fundraise because of the lockdown, increased demand on the services, and increased cost in delivering those services because they had to employ social distancing in their shelters.
For the Welsh Government to expect plaudits for simply giving them money they had already promised them does not constitute an adequate response.
Only a month previously deputy minister and chief whip Jane Hutt wrote in an open letter published in the Western Mail that “Victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence across Wales need our support now, more than ever. I am working with specialist domestic abuse services to make sure help is available for anyone who needs it, and to make sure there is a safe place for victims and survivors to stay.”
Service providers on the ground were telling me that none of the promised cash had reached the front line and some of it was not expected for over a week. England and Scotland had both allocated new money to the issue during the crisis but providers told me Wales had not.
In a letter to Jane Hutt on April 22, Welsh Women’s Aid CEO Sara Kirkpatrick accused the Welsh Government of “giving false hope to survivors”.
She said: “While the Welsh Government continues to allude to funds in its announcements, there appears to be a clear disconnect between this and the process of money being allocated to front line VAWDASV (violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence) services. This gives false hope to survivors that services will continue to have the capacity to meet their needs, when in reality, we know that even before this crisis 512 survivors were unable to be supported in refuges because of a lack of service space, capacity or resources.”
To think that even when this money reaches the front line that it is job done is a fallacy. The cash is the equivalent of putting a plaster on a shotgun wound. Even before coronavirus, refuges were having to turn women away.