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Violence against Women: A literature
review commissioned by the National Group to Address
Violence Against Women
1. Background
In Western society, the most recent efforts to
acknowledge, explain and challenge male violence against
women coincide with the re-emergence of the feminist
movement in the early 1970s. Feminist activists identified
male violence against women as central to the perpetuation
of women's oppression, seeing sexual assault, rape, sexual
harassment, domestic violence and other forms of male
violence as part of a continuum of violence against women
and children (Kelly, 1987; Radford et al, 2000). Violence
against women is experienced by women of all ages and
social classes, all races, religions and nationalities, all
over the world. It is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men
(Krug et al, 2002).
Individual characteristics and circumstances alone
cannot explain why this should be the case. Feminist
commentators suggest that the context for violence against
women is a cultural and political framework in which women
are not equal partners with men. Violence against women is
both the result of gender inequality and the means by which
it is perpetuated (Brownmiller, 1976; Dobash and Dobash,
1979; Radford et al, 2000). This analysis of violence
against women as a reflection of the power imbalance in
society has largely informed the development of work to
challenge violence against women in the United Kingdom, and
in Scotland, over the last 30 years.
The first Women's Aid groups in Scotland opened refuges
in Glasgow and Edinburgh in 1973 (Scottish Women's Aid,
2002), and by 1976, the Scottish Office had provided some
funding towards a national office (Cuthbert and Irving,
2001). Rape Crisis centres soon followed, with centres
opening in Glasgow in 1976 and Edinburgh in 1978
(Christianson and Greenan, 2001). Since then women's
organisations and individual women in Scotland have
continued to develop responses to violence against women,
campaigning for recognition of the issues and for change
and improvement in statutory responses to women who had
experienced violence.
1 On the whole, work to challenge violence against women
in Scotland split early on into separate campaigns against
domestic violence and against rape, although in both areas
of work the links between different forms of abuse
continued to be made. The inclusion of child sexual abuse,
and the legacy for adult survivors, into the sexual
violence agenda dates from the early 1980s, as survivors
began to make contact with Rape Crisis and other support
services. By the early 1990s, separate services for
survivors of child sexual abuse had begun to develop (Kerr,
1990).
By 1987, there was a strong and vibrant women's movement
in Scotland developing new ways to challenge male violence
against women, despite sometimes very limited resources.
The 1987 Scottish Women's Liberation Movement Conference,
"Working Against Violence Against Women" was attended by
over 260 women (and about 150 children) who discussed a
wide range of issues related to violence against women,
including the need for "intensified campaigning on the
issue of child sexual abuse; awareness-raising and action
on racism and classism, heterosexism and oppression in
disability; creating international links; addressing the
problems of women organising in rural areas" (Jennings,
1990, in Henderson and Mackay, 1990: 115).
As awareness of the prevalence and impact of violence
against women increased, institutional responses to the
issue gradually shifted. Throughout the 1970s and early
1980s, for example, the police response to allegations of
rape was characterised by aggressive questioning of
complainers based on an assumption that women were lying.
Following research into the investigation of sexual assault
in Scotland (Chambers and Millar, 1983), a significant
policy shift began, with the publication in 1985 of
guidelines to chief constables on responding to women
alleging rape (Scottish Office, 1985). The first 'female
and child unit', designed to provide a more sympathetic
response to sexual offences complainers, was established in
Glasgow in 1987.
Guidelines on police responses to domestic violence were
published in 1990 (HMIC, 1997), and a 'specialist officer'
approach to domestic abuse was adopted by Lothian and
Borders Police from the early 1990s. This specialist
approach has continued to develop since then. Strathclyde
Police, the largest of the Scottish forces, established
divisional 'family protection units' towards the end of
2002, providing a specialist response to rape and sexual
assault complainers and child abuse complainers as well as
to women reporting domestic violence.
These developments have been supported by the
involvement of women's organisations in delivering training
to police officers. The involvement of Women's Aid in
awareness training for police officers is acknowledged to
have increased understanding of women's experiences of
domestic violence (HMIC, 1997), and Rape Crisis Centres
fulfilled a similar function in providing input to police
training on rape and sexual assault (Christianson and
Greenan, 2001). The Glasgow-based Women's Support Project
was involved in providing training to experienced officers
at Tulliallan Police Training College on the links between
domestic violence and child protection from 1998, and this
training has been continued by Women's Aid.
There have also been changes in the wider criminal
justice response to crimes of violence against women. The
process of restricting the use of sexual history evidence
in sexual offences trials, begun in 1985
2, has been taken a step further with the passing of the
Sexual History (Procedures and Evidence) (Scotland) Act
2002, more than 20 years after Rape Crisis centres began
campaigning on the issue
3. The progress of the current Vulnerable Witnesses Bill
through the Scottish Parliament is the latest outcome of a
process of campaigning for improved treatment by the courts
of women complainers, and other 'vulnerable' groups, which
has been ongoing for more than two decades.
Since the passing of the Matrimonial Homes (Scotland)
Act 1981 there have also been gradual legislative changes
which have increased the protection available for women
from their violent partners/ex-partners. Most recently, the
Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001 is slowly
beginning to have an impact, providing more women with the
option of having powers of arrest attached to a common law
interdict (Cavanagh, Connelly and Scoular, 2003). Despite
ongoing, and justified, concern at the high attrition rates
associated with the prosecution of all crimes of violence
against women through the courts (see, for example, Hester,
Hanmer et al, 2003; Jamieson, 2001; Kelly, 2003), the
general trend is forward-moving, if slow.
Local authorities engaged with the issue of violence
against women initially at a service level, through the
provision of emergency accommodation and social work
services. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s,
however, local authorities played an increasing role in
raising awareness and challenging the norms which underpin
violence against women. Much of this work was undertaken by
women's units, equalities units, and later, community
safety units. Undoubtedly the most high profile example of
this was the development in 1992/1993 of the Zero Tolerance
poster campaign by Edinburgh District Council Women's Unit
(Mackay, 2001).
Local government reorganisation in the mid 1990s
provided another impetus for the development of local
partnerships to tackle violence against women, and this was
further supported by the publication of guidance on
developing such partnerships (CoSLA, 1998). Although some
of these early partnerships took the form of domestic
violence fora, a few (for example in Edinburgh and Glasgow)
adopted a broader position on violence against women.
There have always been supportive individual clinicians
and practitioners in the various areas of the health
service women have approached for health care as a result
of violence. Some have developed local initiatives which
have contributed valuable information to the knowledge base
within their own discipline or their own locality - for
example, a local training programme for midwives in
Inverclyde Hospital (Scobie, 1999), and a domestic abuse
monitoring exercise in the A&E department at Law
Hospital (Guthrie, 1998). Institutional developments in the
health service, however, were inclined to be piecemeal and
inconsistent through most of the 1980s and early 1990s. The
publication of the SNAP
4 report on domestic violence in 1997 focussed attention
on the failure of the health service in Scotland to
adequately address the health needs of women experiencing
domestic violence. At a practice level, the Castlemilk
Demonstration Project ran from 1996-98 from Castlemilk
Health Centre, and was managed by the Department of Public
Health in Greater Glasgow NHS Board. The project aimed to
"improve the safety of women in the home through the
development of an interagency approach" (Cosgrove, 1998: i)
and alongside this also explored ways to improve the
responses of primary health care staff to domestic
violence.
The Women's Public Health Team at Greater Glasgow NHS
Board continues to develop innovative, replicable work on
the impact of gendered violence on women's health. They
have worked to address the training needs of health staff
in relation to domestic violence, and have also been active
in addressing the development of services for survivors of
sexual assault and childhood sexual abuse. Elsewhere in the
health service, initiatives to address domestic abuse have
far outnumbered broader interventions. An exception is the
EVA Project, a multi-disciplinary project currently funded
by NHS Lanarkshire to provide services and improve service
provision for women who have experienced violence at any
point in their lives (EVA, 2001).
The recent publication of NHS guidance for health staff
on responding to domestic abuse continues the more general
trend, although there are signs that other areas are
beginning to attract attention. A Scottish Executive short
life working group on the care needs of adult survivors of
sexual abuse has recently produced a consultation report,
and in Glasgow, a recent survey explored the responses of
clinical psychologists to survivors of sexual abuse and
sexual assault (Biggam and Johnson, 2003).
Against this background of 25 years of campaigning and
service development, the Scottish Office announced the
establishment, in 1998, of the Scottish Partnership on
Domestic Violence, subsequently renamed the Scottish
Partnership on Domestic Abuse. Chaired by Anne Smith QC,
the group comprised representatives from the key Scottish
office departments, the judiciary, the police, the legal
profession, and the voluntary sector. The group was
remitted to develop an action plan leading to a national
strategy on domestic abuse, which was published in November
2000.
The aims of the National Strategy to Address Domestic
Abuse in Scotland are based on the '3 P's' first used in
the Zero Tolerance campaign:
- Prevention - active prevention of domestic abuse of
both women and children
- Protection - appropriate legal protection for women
and children who experience domestic abuse
- Provision -adequate provision of support services
for women/children
The Strategy identified key policy and practice areas to
be developed and improved in order to achieve these aims.
It also placed a requirement on local authorities and
health boards to establish local partnerships to tackle
domestic abuse. The Scottish Executive provided £18 million
through the Domestic Abuse Service Development Fund to
support the work of these local partnerships, and
established the National Group on Domestic Abuse to monitor
the implementation of the strategy. The National Group
includes representatives from the police, the judiciary,
women's support organisations and local authorities. It is
chaired by the Minister for Communities.
There are now 32 local partnerships, covering all local
authority areas in Scotland. Some of these predate the
National Strategy, having developed either from local
domestic violence fora, or from multi-agency groups set up
to tackle violence against women in a broader sense. Of the
32 groups, only four currently have a focus on aspects of
violence against women other than domestic abuse.
In November 2002, the Scottish Parliament debated the
issue of 'violence against women'. The then Minister for
Social Justice, Margaret Curran MSP, announced that the
National Group to Address Domestic Abuse would widen its
remit to include all forms of violence against women, and
would be renamed the National Group to Address Violence
Against Women.
The National Group has commissioned this literature
review to inform the development of the agenda on violence
against women. Accordingly, this report will:
- review the available literature on the prevalence
and impact of violence against women, and on
interventions
- the review will consider sexual violence, sexual
harassment, domestic violence, and commercial sexual
exploitation
- identify examples of good practice
- identify gaps in research, policy and practice on
violence against women in Scotland
The review will primarily focus on work carried out in
Scotland and the U.K., with some reference to international
work, in particular in Canada. With the exception of some
'benchmark' works, the literature search has been limited
to a five-year period from 1998-2003.
The subject of 'violence against women' is huge. There
are acknowledged links between violence against women and
violence against children. However, time constraints mean
that this review cannot adequately consider the impact of
violence against children, although some attention is given
to the impact of childhood sexual abuse on adult women
survivors. For similar reasons, the review does not cover
the sizeable body of literature on sex offenders, although
some consideration is given to work with men who abuse
their partners, in the context of exploring a multi-agency
response to domestic abuse. Nor does the review cover the
body of literature on prevention initiatives.
There are bound to be omissions in a review covering a
subject area as vast as this. This report must therefore be
seen as indicative, aiming to identify and examine some of
the key issues in some depth rather than provide a
comprehensive guide to all that has been researched and
written about violence against women.
A word on terminology - throughout the research
literature, the phrase 'violence against women' is used
interchangeably with 'domestic violence' and 'domestic
abuse', i.e. in contexts where what is being discussed is
violence against women by an intimate partner or
ex-partner. For the sake of clarity, in this report,
'violence against women' is used as a generic term,
indicating the whole spectrum of abuse which may be
experienced by women. Where the report refers specifically
to violence perpetrated against women by intimate partners,
the terms 'domestic violence' or 'domestic abuse' are
used.
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