19th March 2013

Briefing: evidencing the need for independent black and minority ethnic violence against women and girls services

The text below has been taken from the Briefing Paper, which can be found in full with references in the Resource section of the DVCN website

 Position statement

Black and minority ethnic (BME) women escaping abuse often experience repeat victimisation in the form of racism and discriminatory cultural stereotypes that minimise their experience of violence. BME women may be additionally excluded from ‘alien’ seeming services due to unfamiliarity, cultural/religious incompatibility, lack of language services and information gaps in service provision.

It is vital commissioners do not take a one-size-fits-all approach. Commissioners and generic violence against women and girls (VAWG) organisations must recognise that race inequality is everybody’s problem and take steps to ensure provision of adequate support for BME survivors. This can be done through developing working partnerships with specialist organisations, rather than merging or subsuming them into generic organisations.

“There is no dichotomy between the promotion of equality and cohesion and the provision of specialist services to an ethnic minority. Barriers cannot be broken down unless the victims themselves recognise that the source of help is coming from the same community and background as they do.” (Lord Justice Moses, 2008)

In the same way that there is a need for women only spaces (support provided by women, for women) because the dominant norm is patriarchal, so there is a need for black women’s spaces (support for BME women by BME women) because the dominant norm is also racist.

Because of racism, and the power differential it maintains, a merger between a generic VAWG service and a BME-specific service will not be a merger of equals; the less powerful BME service will inevitably be subsumed into the dominant whole and the specialism nurtured in a service run by BME women for BME women will be lost over time.
Reasons and evidence
A generic VAWG service with a BME specific aspect to the support is still a generic (and therefore white) women’s service. It will consequently be less effective in reaching BME victims of VAWG.
This is evident when we listen to what BME women tell us: The majority “stress their preference for service that recognised their faith and culture, often over and above the women-only aspect of the service. A number of ethnic minority women suggested that although they were aware of alternative provision elsewhere, they would not access this service even if it was women-only, because the service would not be culturally sensitive.”


Barriers

BME women not only fear the perpetrator, but also fear the racism and marginalisation in society that undermine their confidence to lead an independent life. Pressures of socialisation and from family on the pretext of honour and shame, for example, are not always understood and/or validated in an alien, mainstream context. This can cause women to feel isolated and to experienced racism within a mainstream service.
Other barriers include concerns about the lack of suitable environments for praying, specific socio-religious diet and culinary practices, and familiar environments for children in temporary accommodation, and previous poor experiences of mainstream services, for example the use of family members in interpretation, which defeats promises of confidentiality and elevates the risk of harm.

BME specific support is more effective

Research carried out for Vital Statistics  found 87% of 124 BME women accessing ten different VAWG services across the UK stated their preference to receive BME specific support. Not only does having a BME specific service mean women are more likely to seek help as the barriers listed above are reduced, but the support received is likely to be more effective. Women who have poor experiences of mainstream services, as a result of isolation, institutional racism, harmful stereotyping, and inability to access supportive networks as a result of language and/or the above, are more likely to return to an abusive relationship where they can access an environment embodying their cultural norms.
A quarter of the respondents said they had left an abusive partner before, without receiving BME specific support, but had returned. The majority of women interviewed said receiving BME specific support would enable them stay out of a violent relationship more effectively and help them to make empowering choices.
All women respondents said having the support of a BME specialist service was a key factor for them in accessing the criminal justice system, ranging from police reports to going to court.

BME specific services enable more effective early intervention

BME women tend to experience violence at earlier ages, and remain in the abusive relationship for longer before seeking help.  BME women are disproportionately affected by different forms of abuse e.g. forced marriage, “honour-based” violence, female genital mutilation, sexual exploitation in the form of commercial sex work, trafficking etc.  Contexts of violence may be different for BME women and girls as there is increased likelihood that perpetrators use other forms of abuse e.g. threats of deportation and abandonment, isolation, entrapment, multiple interested parties and violence condoned by family and community.

The multiple vulnerabilities arising from these overlapping contexts experienced in the wider institutionally racist environment make it harder for BME women to flee violence. It is especially important, therefore, to create safe spaces in which women and girls feel confident to disclose: there is a need for specialist support services that have the capacity to understand, and are seen to understand, the specific complexities BME women face.

Funding cuts are resulting in further discrimination against the most vulnerable women
More than a quarter of women supported by BME specific organisations have no recourse to public funds and as such BME specialist services are working with more complex cases, requiring more specialist skills and understanding in order to provide holistic support for service users.  In contrast, there is growing anecdotal evidence from across England that mainstream VAWG services are refusing women who require additional support. Increasingly, this includes women who need interpreters and women who have no recourse to public funds because of their immigration status, despite there being specific funding available to support women in these situations.

Many BME services that Imkaan and the Aya project are working with report BME women who are perceived as ‘not speaking English’ or who have no recourse to public funds, being refused access to generic refuges on these base, or only being accepted if the referring organisation commits to paying for interpretation. This discriminatory situation is further reducing the support available to vulnerable BME women.
These situations sometimes occur in areas where a generic women’s organisation has bid for and won funding that has been taken away from a BME specific service on the grounds that the  generic organisation provides the same service to all BME women through a one-size-fits all commissioning model.

Recommendations for commissioners
1. Ask for evidence of a track record of effective provision of quality support. Quality evidenced by outcomes and not just outputs, and by the diversity of survivors supported.  This should be by track record, evidenced by a history of at least five years.
2. Encourage independent organisations to collaborate by rewarding partnership bids that sustain specialisms rather than favouring one organisation which cannot, despite appearances, adequately meet the diversity of local need.
3. Demonstrate commitment to the Equalities Duty by ensuring there are services for those with protected characteristics, delivered by those with protected characteristics. 
4. Commission services that can evidence social value/return on investment of a period of time.
5. Commission for medium costs and low risk survivors in order to prevent costs further down the line. This will enable long term savings as well as crisis prevention in the short term.

 www.ayaproject.org.uk