Gill Hague

Is Anyone Listening? : Accountability and Women Survivors of Domestic Violence

Contents 1. Introduction Section One: Rethinking Service User Movements in Relation to Women Survivors of Violence 2. Women Survivors of Domestic Violence as Service Users: The Silenced Group 3. The Obstacles to Empowerment - What Kind of Power for Women Section Two: Womens Views and Voices in Domestic Violence Services 4. What Abused Women Think of the Service They Receive 5. How Much Do Agencies Listen to Domestic Violence Survivors? Section Three: How to Engage in Survivor Participation and Consultation 6. How To Do It: Empowerment and Stigma 7. How To Do It: Policies, Sensitivities and Resources 8. Practical Ways Forward and Innovation, Including Domestic Violence Forums 9. Further Innovatory Practice: Womens Aid, Womens Advocacy Organisations and Campaigns 10. Other Methods of Survivors Participation and Getting Agencies to Take Action 11. Conclusion

Who Listens? The Voices of Domestic Violence Survivors in Service Provision in the United Kingdom:

This article discusses, in the context of the United Kingdom, service user participation in domestic violence services and how much the voices of domestic violence survivors are heard in policy and service development. If services addressing domestic violence are to continue to develop and to effectively meet abused womens needs, then the views of those using them need to be heeded and acted on. In the UK, these views have been mainly overlooked in the past. Now, however, as in some other countries, domestic violence survivor participation has been addressed to a small extent. This article discusses some of the pioneering techniques being tried out and the sensitivity and difficulties involved, within a context of an understanding of empowerment and the activist movement against gender violence. The article considers the participation of UK women experiencing violence in both shelter and advocacy services, in wider interagency forums and in policy development.

Women, housing, homelessness and domestic violence

Abstract Many womens lives are still deeply affected by unequal power relationships between men and women and by conventional expectations about domesticity as well as by the actualities of their responsibilities for the care of children and the home in which they live. If women experience violence from a husband or male partner, the violence may be intimately connected with these expectations and realities. If they then have to leave home because of the violence, their problems are compounded by their domesticity and lack of access to financial resources and by the homelessness legislation, which has recently been changed to make its use as a point of entry to permanent accommodation much more restricted. In addition to the violence they have experienced, the loss of home is in itself an element in the complex nature of the trauma that women in a violent relationship suffer. This is compounded further for themselves and their children by the uncertain period they spend waiting for the possibility of rehousing if they leave. The study described in this paper looked at homelessness law in the UK before the passage of the recent Housing Act (1996) in Britain. It does not bear out the supposition that homeless families, including women escaping from domestic violence and their children, were unfairly favoured under the previous legislation. The paper argues that the withdrawal in the new Act of the statutory link between homelessness and a lifeline to permanent housing is an example of the ambivalent and contradictory nature of government policy in relation to families and to the social position of women, and is a potentially disastrous development for many women experiencing domestic violence and for their children.

Losing out on both counts: disabled women and domestic violence

The links between disability and domestic violence have been under-examined to date, leading to the marginalisation of disabled women affected by domestic violence in theory, politics, and practice. This paper draws on the findings from the first national study in the United Kingdom of the needs of disabled women experiencing domestic violence and of the services available to meet these needs. Utilising the concept of intersectionality to locate abused disabled women along axes of oppression/domination, the paper highlights the complex nature of women’s abuse experiences as well as the inadequacy of professional responses which leave women without support and protection.

The silenced pain: domestic violence 1945-1970

This article discusses domestic violence in the UK between 1945 and 1970 before the most recent burst of the womens movement. Drawing on the findings of a small-scale retrospective research study, the authors outline the position of women in the new welfare state of the period and discuss employment, marriage, divorce, and attitudes to motherhood in relation to domestic violence. With attention to class and race factors, the paper goes on to describe the lack of services on all levels for women experiencing domestic violence (particularly perhaps as regards housing and the police), and the severe impact of such violence on women at the time, from which there were few avenues of escape. It identifies the pride and resistance of many interviewees and the long-term tragedy which has imbued their lives-lives which, even now, so very many years later, are deeply scarred by hidden pain. The research study found a widespread and enduring silence about domestic abuse in the post-war period and the paper is an exploratory piece to assist in breaking that silence. It aims to provide a voice for the women interviewees, now reaching the end of their lives, many of whom have spoken about the violence which they experienced for the first time, and to pay public tribute to their bravery and suffering and strength.

Inching forward on domestic violence: the ‘co-ordinated community response’ and putting it in practice in Cheshire

Violence against women is at the sharp end of gender oppression. In combating domestic violence specifically, ‘co-ordinated community responses’ are now widely recognised as the best way forward, bringing together all relevant organisations to build pro-active, preventative projects with the key involvement of womens domestic violence services. The Cheshire Domestic Abuse Partnership in the UK is conducting pioneering work along these lines. From 2000 to 2003, this project was funded and evaluated through the Home Office Crime Reduction Programme. This paper builds on the material from the evaluation, supplemented with an analysis of recent developments until 2007 which have maintained the initiative at the forefront of domestic abuse work. Thus, the article is a discussion paper, rather than an evaluation report (available elsewhere). Using a gender analysis of power and control to understand domestic abuse, the Cheshire project melds together data monitoring, improved policing, training, outreach to abuse survivors, and domestic violence projects in schools, in an active mix under mature multi-agency leadership. Its central focus, deriving from the principles of the womens activist movement, is the empowerment of abused women. The Cheshire initiative has much to teach us about how to move forward in making womens and childrens lives safer.

Interagency work and domestic violence in the UK

Abstract Multiagency work as a response to domestic violence is now being encouraged worldwide with the development of complex interagency intervention projects in some countries. In the UK, interagency coordination currently forms a principal plank of domestic violence policy. This paper reports on a major national study of the 200 or so multiagency initiatives presently existing in Britain. Domestic violence interagency forums of this type can clearly be a creative way forward, on one hand, but a smokescreen or a facesaver to disguise inaction on the other. The article discusses resources, possible competition with women’s services, and power, control and equality issues, including the way that women experiencing domestic violence are little involved at the moment and interagency initiativies are rarely accountable to them in any way. Possible marginalisation of the shelter movement, and the issues and difficulties involved in building a mainstream interagency response in which a vibrant social movement of women is centrally involved, are matters of concern in developing this potentially innovative approach to tackling domestic violence.

Disabled Women and Domestic Violence: Making the Links, a National UK Study

This article reports on the first-ever national study of domestic violence and disability in the United Kingdom. The multi-method study used the social model of disability and was mainly qualitative in design. It reports distressing findings of the abuse which disabled women may experience, confirming similar findings in Australia and other countries. Less provision than that available proportionally to non-disabled women is accompanied by a greater need for such focussed and specialist services. Disabled women in the United Kingdom therefore lose out on both counts. The paper concludes that a cultural shift or sea-change is required in relevant service provision at both management and operational levels, informed by disabled women themselves wherever possible. The study made wide-ranging recommendations at both the strategic level across localities and for relevant agencies in the United Kingdom. These recommendations have wide relevance in other countries.

‘Honour’-based violence and Kurdish communities: Moving towards action and change in Iraqi Kurdistan and the UK

This paper discusses ‘honour’-based violence (HBV) and ‘honour’ killings in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (in the north of Iraq) and the UK. HBV consists of violence committed, most commonly, against (young) women by male relatives and is usually carried out in order to preserve or restore the ‘honour’ of families, communities, or individuals. The paper discusses HBV in the context of the first-ever transnational study of such violence in Iraqi Kurdish communities. The study is a major part of the contribution of Iraqi Kurdistan to the current global effort to begin to combat this type of violence against women. Using an understanding of HBV as gender-based violence, the paper reports on the findings, actions, and recommendations which emerged from the study for both Iraqi Kurdistan and the UK. These recommendations are grounded in a gendered perspective and are currently leading to social action and change for women in Iraqi Kurdistan, together with some further impacts in the UK.

Violence against Women: Devastating Legacy and Transforming Services

This article deals with violence against women in an overview discussion. It first reflects on the devastating legacy of gender violence, with examples from across the world. It goes on to discuss the transformations that began to develop in both service provision and in attention to, and public attitudes about, the issue in various countries, from the 1970s onwards. There have been (a) transforming services, (b) transforming people and (c) transforming research. Illustrations are provided from the United Kingdom with additional material from Australia and New Zealand. The paper celebrates both the achievements of activism and service provisions over the past 30 years on gender violence, and also the first 20 years of specialized violence against women research, during which time it has moved from the margins to – almost – the mainstream.