First national independent legal advice service for rape victims to be led by Centre for Women's Justice

[Imnobody4]

A very welcome development
https://www.centreforwomensjustice.org.uk/updates/centre-for-womens-justice-to-deliver-first-ever-national-independent-legal-advice-service-for-victim-survivors-of-rape-and-sexual-violencenbsp

Centre for Women’s Justice is excited to announce that it will be leading the delivery of a new national free Independent Legal Advice service for adult victim-survivors of rape and sexual assault. We will be supported by partners Rape Crisis England and Wales and Victim Support.

The service will provide specialist, independent legal advice to victim-survivors about their rights within the criminal justice process. It will support them in relation to issues such as excessive personal data requests, Victim’s Right to Review and police investigations that fall below expected standards. The scheme is designed to help those who decide to report to the police understand their options, make informed decisions, and access clear, wholly independent legal advice at key stages of the process. While we anticipate that the overwhelming majority of service users will be women, the service will also be available to male survivors.

I received a vague response from Nogoh,

i therefore reiterated my concerns regarding their mission creep and asked that it be dealt with as a complaint

it was referred up yesterday to Director of finance and operations, who responded today.

She gave a very thorough and considerate response, being well aware of the issues for the Women’s sector and commissioning habits.

they are ensuring that the project is distinct from their main activities.

i have advised that I do not wish to pursue this issue further as I can see from all that I have read, evaluation, project plans etc, that this is a very important initiative. and besides which the service is discreet in the sense that users will not come across each other.

the amount of males in need of this service will be captured so they should be able to see if they were treated any differently.

data on male victims is poor, i know that through my own work, and likely to be a very tiny minority.

Interestingly sex matters have just issued a report on where sex matters in women’s services by Maya.

Just to be clear. CWJ provide the legal advice. The front line services will be WGN and Victim Support. I presumed that the inclusion of Victim Support is because WGN is a single sex service.

The question for me still remains whether CWJ willing said they would provide legal advice via a mixed sex service, or were told they wouldn't get the money if they didn't.

The issue with Edinburgh Rape Crisis wasn't about including men, but them insisting that a TW was the same as a biological female.

Will be interesting to see what CWJ resplies to you.

This in fact has been a long term complaint of feminist initiatives whether RC or other services.

Women set them up. They create standards. Prove there is a need for funding.

Then men arrive and say we want that but we cant be bothered to do it ourselves, but as women you will of course hand over all your hard work to us, and provide the support in some cases.

Never forget why some RC or WA projects have separate services for men. It is because men couldn't be bothered to set up their own services.