Reem Alsalem isn’t frightened of controversy. Central to fulfilling her brief as the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women and girls is her insistence that sex and gender must not be conflated, and should be recorded in data. She also acknowledges that rights can clash – for example, those of women and of transgender people, both of whom are protected under the UK’s Equality Act.
Alsalem has made several high-profile interventions in this space, most recently branding the World Health Organisation’s attempt to draft guidelines on trans healthcare “one-sided”. She has also voiced deep concern over the detrimental impact that the changes put forward in Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill could have on women and girls. Alsalem, rightly it turned out, noted that the Scottish government had failed to set out the impact of self-identification “for the exceptions under the Equality Act that are provided based on sex”.
It is perhaps because of this work that she recognises the importance of acknowledging biological sex. In the UK, a woman is killed by a man every three days and one in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, she pointed out. Much of that violence is sex-based. “It’s clear that there’s very little reference to male violence against women and girls as a concept [in the UK],” Alsalem told me. “I think that is problematic because we continuously then dilute the phenomenon.” We must remember, she said, that the majority of the victims of sex-based violence are females and that its perpetrators are primarily male.
To change this, she said, the government must place more emphasis on protecting women and girls. While the UK has a minister for women and equalities (Alsalem met the current minister, Kemi Badenoch, during her visit) this wasn’t enough. The portfolio needs to be upgraded, she argues, with a separate ministry for equality and women. (Badenoch and others who have held the post have simultaneously held another demanding cabinet position.) Other countries have done this, Alsalem said, citing Spain as one example. “You need that figure that can really galvanise and bring together all the other ministries that work on this issue, ensuring that the matter is mainstreamed, and that it’s really addressed.”
Responsibility for reducing violence against women and girls (VAWG) sits with the Home Office. But there is a role for the Ministry of Justice, too, while the equality brief sits under the Cabinet Office. “There does not appear to be a coherent approach to crucial legislation,” she said.
Alsalem has plenty of ideas of how Westminster and the devolved nations could better serve women and girls. Her visit to the UK was filled with meetings with a variety of actors. In the Family Court, for instance, she wished to see the urgent prohibition of the use of “parental alienation” allegations in child custody cases (when one parent claims the other has deliberately “alienated” their children from them, an argument campaigners fear is often used by fathers accused of abuse to silence victims) and the end of the promotion of “contact at all costs”. Government funding issues are “very present”, she said, in all her discussions with women and victim organisations, often the first port of call for the most vulnerable. Budgets have been squeezed, and the government tendering process often favoured larger, non-specialist providers of services, she said. The UK’s policy of no recourse to public funds for those without a permanent right to remain also causes major difficulties for some women, trapping them with abusive husbands or partners on whom they depend on economically.
Underpinning all this was the need to collect proper data; data disaggregated by sex and by gender, as well as by legal residency status and ethnicity. The UK’s data collection, she said, is “inadequate”. Alsalem found inconsistencies across the same institutions – the police for example – in the way data was collected, depending on geography. This issue was, she said in her official report to the UK government, “the single biggest obstacle to advancing on ending VAWG as it makes it impossible to measure progress, identify trends and inform related policies”.
NB this is only part of a much longer article but chose these as recent threads on FWR have been about her visit to the UK https://www.newstatesman.com/the-weekend-interview/2024/02/reem-alsalem-biggest-obstacles-ending-violence-against-women
For anyone interested these are the earlier threads that came up via search (which isn't always accurate!)
Reem Alsalem strikes again
Please Support Reem Alsalem
Wow! "TERFITA" The UNs Reem Alsalem has spoken out
Statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem.
Reem Alsalem - UN Special Rapporteur on VAWG, to visit UK in 2024. Seeks input
Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls tweet against recent self ID decisions