The Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, Reem Alsalem, conducted an official visit to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 12 to 21 February 2024.
In the present report, she assesses the situation of gender-based violence against women and girls in the country, identifies gaps and challenges and recommends measures for preventing and combating violence against women and girls.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Based on the above findings and in a spirit of cooperation and dialogue, the Special Rapporteur provides the following recommendations to the Government of the UK:
89 Fully incorporate the Istanbul Convention into domestic law by lifting the reservations on Articles 44 and 59 and enacting comprehensive legislation to ensure consistent, nationwide compliance, and repeal the Illegal Migration Act.
90 Establish a ministry for women and equality and adopt a UK wide comprehensive strategy on VAWG is rights based and has a strong intersectional approach. It must also have timelines and adequate budget; and that addresses prevention. The robust coordination and oversight structures on VAWG, should also be implemented across all regions. The government machinery dealing with VAWG must have a formal interface with civil society and women’s organizations.
91 Abolish the “no-recourse to public funds” to ensure that the most vulnerable of women and girls have access to minimum assistance and support. Ensure that funding related to ending violence against women and girls, including for frontline service providers is placed on a statutory footing, to protect vital investment. Payment of instalments should be timely and in advance of a new service implementation, with full pay review and analysis of cost recovery reflected in awards, with no cost scoring.
92 Repeal the Illegal Migration Act, and ensure access to services irrespective of migratory status, in part by instituting firewall policy that would prevent the automatic or routine sharing of migratory status information between service providers (including healthcare professionals, social workers, and victim support services) and the Home Office or law enforcement agencies.
93 Accelerate the conclusion of the inquiry into the mother and Baby Homes in Northern Ireland ensuring effective access to truth, justice and reparations and taking into consideration lessons learned from similar inquiries.
94 Urgently and swiftly prohibit the use of parental alienation and related pseudo-science concepts, appoint only experts who are fully qualified psychologists or psychiatrists; that are regulated by the HCPC and that have regular accredited domestic abuse training. Ensure an end to the of parental involvement between abusive parents and their children at all costs. Prohibit the removal of children from the parent they live with for the purpose of restarting, repairing or improving the child’s relationship with the other parent.
95 Ensure that public and private institutions, including employers, healthcare providers, and other institutions, such as prisons, to uphold the ruling, including interalia, the provision of female only spaces, recording sex as a distinct variable from gender identity. Provide necessary support and guidance to all segments of society to increase understanding of the implications of the ruling.
96 Women organizations must be able to effectively participate in all decisions that affects women and girls. Women and girls must be able to speak on all issues including sex and gender identity without fear, intimidation or reprisals.
97 Urgently improve healthcare and support systems for women in detention, particularly in relation to mothers and pregnant women in custody, ensuring better outcomes for both them and their children.
98 Ensure that all domestic and intimate partner violence cases, are investigated in a timely and efficient manner, that perpetrators are prosecuted and, if they are convicted, are punished with appropriate sanctions; that victims have access to effective remedies and means of protection, including strong police protection, adequate emergency shelter, rehabilitative services, legal assistance and other support services must be guaranteed.
99 Adopt standards on training for law enforcement and the judiciary on gender bias, including against mothers within the context of custody cases, as well as on more recent forms of violence such as coercive control and stalking. Such training must be enhanced and provided by specialists. Repeal the use of “parental alienation” in family courts as well as stop using unregulated experts.
100 Conduct more police training on the Crown Prosecution Services (CPS) Protocol on stalking run background checks on new hires in law enforcement and end the impunity for any crimes committed.
101 Consider adopting the Nordic Model on prostitution, focusing on the criminalization of purchase of sexual acts, decriminalizing prostituted women, as well as supporting and scaling up exit strategies. Extend rules governing physical prostitution to online prostitution and ensure that possession of non-consensual intimate is considered as a criminal made offence. Consider establishing an online safety commission to support affected individuals and make policy recommendations
102 Explicitly criminalize femicide and consider establishing a femicide watch or observatory on violence against women in close cooperation with the National Human Rights and Equality Commissions and representatives from civil society.
103 Implement the recommendations of the Cass Review, including by ensuring that any legislation and policies on the transitioning of person as well as future policies on conversion therapy do not result in criminalizing holistic support and inquiry for persons dealing with neurodiversity or past trauma. Fast tracking any person on the medical path of transitioning should be As clinical trials for puberty blockers must benefit from the insights of an independent ethics committee. will Persons who have de-transitioned must be provided with holistic support.
104 Take immediate measures to address misogyny at schools and adopt a robust curriculum on promoting respectful equal relationships, including a Sex, and Health Education curriculum that explicitly covers sexual harassment and online abuse. Ensure mandatory training for teachers and staff on recognizing early signs of abuse and ensure that cases are dealt with swiftly and that parents are involved.
105 Ensure full implementation of effective protection orders and grant competent authorities the power to issue them for all forms of violence against women and domestic violence.
106 Strengthen child protection measures, including for girls, by adopting child sensitive approaches; screen the background of persons coming into contact with children for sexual harm, and improving identification and support of victims
107 Ensure mandated reporting of suspected grooming with penalties, expand the Grooming Gangs Taskforce with sustained funding and ethnicity profiling, and establish permanent victim-led inquiries to address previous failures.
108 Conduct a comprehensive analysis into relevant research and data before adopting the proposed surrogacy bill, including the potential for exploitation in surrogacy arrangements locally; the negative consequences of removing a child from birth mother at delivery; the ramifications of removing the name of the birth mother as a legal parent. In the meantime, commercial surrogacy agencies in the UK should be stopped, and UK citizens and residents should not be advised to undertake commercial surrogacy abroad.
109 Enhance support provided to victims of slavery by providing personalized, long-term assistance, commissioning and publishing reliable data, while amending recent migration-related legislation to prioritize victim identification over immigration control.
110 Conduct studies to gain a better understanding of the scale of forced marriage in the UK including by creating a task force to coordinate agencies, mandate training for frontline staff to spot coercion, run a targeted education campaign on marriage laws, and fund safe spaces with legal, housing, and counselling support for victims, ensuring rapid enforcement of protection orders.
From https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5947add1-visit-united-kingdom-great-britain-and-northern-ireland
Numbering is because it comes at the end of a long report.
This is the unedited version so may change before being presented in a couple of week..