Head of Refuge fears they may be forced to close...

[TakingBackSaturday]

I'm actually, for once, lost for worse

Welcome to America Mark 2... :(

[TakingBackSaturday]

Words, not worse...

[FrothyDragon]

This is too important to go unnoticed. It says something about our society when charities set up to help the vulnerable are at risk, doubting they'll last the year...

[MrsClown]

I got out of a violent marriage via Women's Aid. I dont know how I would have done it without their help. It is just typical of today's government/society. I seriously worry what is going to happen. Lynne Featherstone says the govt are committed to ending violence against women and girls, how! they seem to be doing the opposite.

[blackcurrants]

oh this is so awful.

[FrothyDragon]

I don't know what the government are playing at.

Look, Ms Featherstone et al. It's all very well putting campaigns out there which aim to end violence against women out there, but if you're going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk...

Here's what I'd like to see the government do if they're as committed to the cause as they claim they are:

1. Provide ringfenced funding for sectors which aim to end VAW. We can't afford to have charities like Refuge scared that they'll be closed by the end of the year.
   
2. Provide lessons, explaining what IS and ISN'T acceptable in relationships to teenagers.
   
3. Provide guidelines to the media, demanding the abolishment of victim blaming; we don't want to see the domestic murders minimised, with the murderers sympathised with. Nor do we want to see DV glamourised, or used just for spectacular plots (EastEnders, I'm looking at you)
   
4. Stricter sentencing for perpetrators of domestic violence, and improved after care for the victims, regardless of the route that the victim takes.
   
5. A dedicated and specially trained teams of Domestic Violence Support Officers for each police district. When I reported my ex for DV the second time, I noticed an immense improvement after a DV support officer was assigned to the case.
   
   I'm not sure how workable these would be, but we need a damn improvement on what we have now.
   
   Whilst I remember, I've seen this petition floating about. We need to make a noise about this, one way or another. We need to be sure that the DV services are safe, because right now, we're seeing a very worrying picture painted, and it can't be helping victims, either. Not by a long shot...

[PlumpDogPillionaire]

Frothy I guess you had to bump this because so many of the rest of us are lost for words too.
Thank you for linking to petition. Thank you for linking us to something we can do to try and make a difference. (I had actually avoided this thread, just thinking, OK, what is there to say?)
Am signing petition and hope others will do so too.

[FrothyDragon]

I had to bump this, yes... I can't bear to see this go unnoticed. I can't bear to think of the women turned away from Refuge, and the likes, because, the hell, the services are strained. I've sat here half of the day, drifting between a depressive state, because I'm scared of where this government is taking us, and a state of trying to work out just what we need to do to drive this home to the government. And I don't actually know how we're going to make the government take a look and say "actually, we're wrong."

[minimathsmouse]

ConDems are making changes to the Legal Aid Bill because the Lords have pulled it apart. Seems the first bill proposed dropping legal aid in relation to DV.

According to Ken Clarke they are stumping up lots of new money for domestic violence centres or some other such thing. I will look into later when I have time. They are privatising everything from health to the police and don't get me started on Dave's Big society idea to have more charity involved in providing frontline services. The very charities expected to take up the slack are going under because of budget cuts.

No joined up thinking, just a bunch a silly rich boys with a piggy bank!

Have signed petition, wondering what else can be done.

[Greenknowe]

Petition signed. Feeling v impotent . What can we do other than raise awareness?

[FrothyDragon]

I don't know. I'm making as big a noise about this as possible. But I don't know how much noise we can make... :(

[Notthefullshilling]

I would point out that your list frothy could equally apply to disability, lgbt, and BME. In some cases especially with women from BME the mainstream refugees are not providing enough spaces that are designed specificly to cope with cultural and religious norms.

Women's community projects have been comparably longer established than say lgbt, which means that they have more to lose, and yet are more likely to have never been cut before. This double whammy puts them in a difficult situation in trying to cope with the perceived threat to there funding. It also on the plus side gives them a fairly large pool of supporters who could be mobilised to pressure the government, as well as contribute to funds if need be.

I think some refugees might close, certainly will have to cut back, but I do not think that the large numbers of supporters that refugees or WA have will mean the entire service is closed. However this just relates to funding from central government, the funding that most local refugees depend on comes from local authorities, this is where the danger lies as all local authority budgets are being slashed and so the voluntary sector in every part of the country is being decimated.Central government who are reducing the budgets are let off the hook by saying that it is up to the local councils etc how they allocate the money. What I am saying just so it is clear is that, local women's aid and the local services are more at risk, and some of that risk will come in the form of having to justify why they should be funded when day centres for the elderly or the disabled, careers groups, school services run by local community groups get cut.

This is ofcourse is unacceptable as it pits one group against another, I would like actually to see all these services and many more funded from central government through general taxation, I think charities should not be supplying services,if they do exist they should be to present the government and the public with information and arguments that are not normally heard, such as women's rights.

[PlumpDogPillionaire]

I guess create as many links to info/petition, etc. as possible. (I'd thought of linking this thread to AIBU, then backed off - defeatist, maybe?)
Guess there's also Fb, Twitter, other forums?
The media I use has given quite a lot of attention to this - or maybe it's just something that I notice... but I still don't know how much awareness of it there is generally.

[OneLieIn]

I am a big fan of refuge but i was genuinely horrified at the head of Refuge who was on Radio 4 or 5 this morning saying that she didn't think the introduction of a law where police can disclose info about former violence would help women and would not have helped a woman in trouble.

I could not believe what I was hearing.

[FrothyDragon]

StarsAndBoulevards posted it in AIBU, but it got pulled; some complexity about petitions were only allowed, provided the sole point of the thread wasn't to get signatures...

Right, if anyone has twitter, facebook, any other links, PLEASE share the petition? The more recognition we can get for it, the more likely we are to get it discussed. In the mean time, I'm going to have a brain storm tomorrow, come up with some other plans, if possible.

[minimathsmouse]

Have shared the article to face book will tweet later. I'm going to see what I can find out about these centres that Ken Clarke mentioned. It was on Radio 4 at 6pm.

[FrothyDragon]

OneLieIn, Claire's Law is discussed in another thread. As hard as it is to say it, I suspect she's right.

Firstly, when you start dating someone, it's rare that the first thought in your head is "whoa, they might be abusive". Add to that, this means that the onus is put on the victim to find out if their partner is abusive. I'd been with my ex three years before I first sought help. Claire's Law, although the heart is in the right place, just puts the onus on the victim. It also doesn't account for relationships where the abuser's ex didn't report the abuse. On top of that, had my ex's ex told me he abused her, I'm not sure I'd have believed her. I warned the woman he got with after me. six months later, I got an email, simply telling me I was right, and she was sorry she didn't believe me. I never found out what happened.

[FrothyDragon]

Thank you, minimathmouse. :)

[PlumpDogPillionaire]

Fb it is.
Good explanation re. Clare's Law, Frothy - and sorry to hear about what happened to you.

[OneLieIn]

Frothy, you may be right and I won't clutter this thread with my thoughts. But the head of refuge lost a massive amount of credibility with me this morning. I wonder how many others had the same reaction as me? It would be a shame if her comments damaged Refuge.

[FrothyDragon]

Thank you, PDP. I was one of the lucky ones. I got out whilst I was still young. But I'm scared this is going to trap so many women.

[FrothyDragon]

sorry, OneLieIn, x-posted... I'm just hoping her comments don't get misconstrued too much. It does require a little critical thinking to understand where she's coming from, in a sense. It's one of those things that looks good on paper, but then, I'm not sure it'd work in practise.

[Notthefullshilling]

OneLieIn, I too was a little taken back by her reaction, I thought "Claires" dad came over very well and spoke very positvly in support of empowering women. He quoted all the stats and put forward all the arguments about dv being a pattern of abuse starting off with disrespect leading up to physicle harm.

Frothy I agree too the numbers of people in the first flush would be small, as unless the first through 8 dates end in some kind of attack, those seriouse dv threats are playing the long game where by they take their time to gain control of the woman. It strikes me though that every week on mn we see threads started asking for advice about an incident that has made a woman wonder about her partner. Surely that is what Claire's law would be there to do, allow someone in a relationship to see if the partner has form and make a decision from there. I agree the real question is what you do with that information as in not taking a "nothing found" as evidence of no problem. That though is an educational thing and the more dv is reported the larger the database will become leading to more warnings.

[AyeRobot]

Sandra Horley has gone up in my estimations after her comments. Do we cancel each other out?

The awful irony is that Clare's Law is unlikely to have saved <a class="break-all" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13506721www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13506721" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">Clare Wood and Sandra recognises that. He shouldn't have been in a position to harm her. In my book, he shouldn't have been in a position to even meet her, given that he was a danger to the public.

As for Refuge, I'll repeat the point I've made on other threads - anyone on MN who recommends Women's Aid, Rape Crisis or going to a refuge should make a donation. And any man who wants to know what he can do to support women and/or feminism should open their wallet in that direction too.

[MyNameIsInigoMontoya]

Have shared the article too.

Couldn't sign the petition as it says I already have, though I don't remember doing that! Though I had a few doubts about the wording anyway, it asks the govt to stop cuts but judging from the article, it seems that technically it's the local authorities making the decisions about how much to fund them (within their available budget). So I suspect the govt could try to cop out and say it's "not down to them" blah blah... but at least it will show that people care.