This is the text of a speech I delivered earlier today at UNISON’s National Women’s Conference. It’s on motion 7: ‘Women at risk – the danger of cuts to violence against women services.’
The statistics speak for themselves.
Almost half of all adult women in the UK have experienced domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking. Between 50 and 80,000 women are raped every year in this country. An estimated 70,000 women living in the UK have undergone female genital mutilation, and up to 7,000 girls remain at high risk of having it done to them. Thousands more women and girls are threatened with so-called honour crimes or forced marriage and, according to the UN, some 200 million women and girls are missing from the world today because of sex selective abortions and female infanticide.
Last year the Home Secretary Theresa May declared:
“No level of violence against women and girls is acceptable in modern Britain or anywhere else in the world. …As women and girls we have made great strides but we need to do more to ensure that women and future generations are not held back. My ambition is nothing less than ending violence against women and girls.”
And yet despite the government’s new found concern about the prevalence of violence against women; despite its avowed commitment to both preventing this violence and dealing better with the aftermath of the gender hate crimes committed against us, specialist by women for women services, set up with the express purpose of providing support for the survivors of these crimes, remain desperately underfunded, and a woman’s ability to access such services remains subject to a postcode lottery.
