policy - Part 4

Pulling up the drawbridge

In housing law in England it has long been recognised that to escape domestic violence you may need to leave home, and travel quite a distance – including across local authority boundaries. Access to social housing would usually require a ‘local connection’ to that local authority – like a moat created between each council area. However, an exception exists for individuals who are unable to remain safely in their own local authority – like a drawbridge extended across these moats – creating a route to safety. So women escaping domestic violence are able to apply to a local authority where they have no ‘local connection’.

But these drawbridges are being pulled up in all kinds of ways – cutting off escape routes for women and children.

Sometimes, a housing officer in a local authority will not tell women that they can apply for social housing. Other times, they will refer someone in crisis to a refuge in another area, and not explain that this temporary accommodation does not necessarily fix their location in the longer term. Refuges may be required by funders to prioritise local women, and even keep a room empty rather than provide accommodation to a non-local woman needing to escape abuse. Sometimes women give up a secure tenancy knowing it will never be safe for them to return… but no-one tells them that they might be able to use that tenancy for a transfer or reciprocal arrangement to another local authority where they would be safe.

As these drawbridges are closed to women who need to relocate to another area, their escape journeys are made more fragmented – more risky, costly and disruptive – by law, policy and practice. Law, policy and practice which could be changed….

For more details on how women’s domestic violence journeys are made more fragmented by policy and practice see:

Journal of Gender-Based Violence
Segmented journeys, fragmented lives: women’s forced migration to escape domestic violence

which is free to access during August 2017.

Moving – and Moving On

The metaphor of ‘moving on’ is more often used in policy and practice responses to domestic violence than thinking about the actual journeys of women and children moving all around the country.

Women often experience their literal journeys as unsettling and disorientating; and therefore feel that they will not really know where they are going with their lives until they can stop literally going places.

“I was just feeling like – you still don’t know where you are going, what you are doing, you know. I was just – until before I was like – I don’t know what I’m doing; you know you feel embarrassed sometimes – moving all your stuff, you know; and with children and all that. It was like – oh, what am I doing, what am I doing? Where am I going? It’s not easy. You don’t know really – it’s only like that I left but I don’t know where I’m going.”

[Julien Rosa – age 24 with 3 and 7 year old boys]

They feel that they need to stop moving, to be able to get their lives back on course.

“In a way I feel quite drained and really tired; I can’t wait to just get in to a new place and just sit – not physically, but mentally. To be able to just –[sigh]- it’s done; and just wake up and be all like – this is it – I’m going, I’m moving – not just plodding, plodding, plodding.”

[Louise – age 28, with 7 year old girl]

All the moving means that women feel stuck – that their lives have been put on hold.

“I just think – where would I be now if I hadn’t moved – where would I be? Because I’ve moved so many times – years have had to be put on hold because of it – and I didn’t want to start life this late. Like going to college and things like that – it should have been done a long time ago.”

[Jenny – age 21, with a 3 year old girl]

It is when they finally become more settled that they feel they are able to start ‘moving on’.

“I’ve just been so lucky really – really have. It’s just that – after years of hell – all of a sudden I’m in this place – and I don’t mean the flat – I mean this wonderful place; and it just feels amazing. And I just think – feeling like that – helps you then to move on with other things as well.”

[Helen – age 52 with 3 adult children]

Data boundaries – Knowledge boundaries

Data are often collected within administrative boundaries, as if those boundaries contain all the necessary knowledge. But boundaries can be porous – with people and resources crossing through.

Women escaping domestic violence are on the move – crossing administrative boundaries if they need to: either for safety, or support, or to find services.

However, if those services – and the authorities which plan and commission those services – only look within their administrative boundaries, they will not be able to see or understand what is going on. They won’t have the data they need to provide good evidence for their decisions.

For example, if London services – whether at the Borough-level, or across the city – only collect London data, they will only get part of the picture. They will see London women accessing London services; and they will see women from outside London coming to London domestic violence services.

But they are missing a key part of the picture.

Many London women escape domestic violence by leaving London. They may go elsewhere in South East England; or may go much further.

In fact, for the period of time when there were country-wide data from the Supporting People Programme, every year more London women left to elsewhere in the country, than women came to London to access services.

The full data picture needs to cover all four aspects of the journeys women make:

Within Borough journeys

Within London journeys

Journeys coming to London

Journeys leaving London

If authorities, service providers and commissioners only look at London data they only get a partial picture of London women and domestic violence services (http://www.domesticabusemigration.co.uk/). They do not see all the London women who go to services elsewhere – that there are more women leaving London than coming to London. That for domestic violence services London actually needs and uses the rest of the country more than it serves it.

* all maps one year of Supporting People Programme data – women accessing accommodation services due to domestic violence. Data based on Supporting People Client Records from Communities and Local Government. ©Janet C. Bowstead

Less of a loss on the journey

Women who have to relocate to escape domestic violence often lose personal possessions, furniture, employment, and contact with friends or family who might be at risk from an abusive partner trying to track them down. They may lose the chance of study or specialist services that they had applied for in one locality, and now have to start again at the bottom of a waiting list. Many also lose their housing rights when they have to give up a secure tenancy and are unable to afford, or are ineligible for, similar housing security in their new location. In so many ways, the emotional and practical implications of the abuse and the relocation are highly disruptive for women and their children.

However, in London at least, there is now the chance of less of a loss on the journey.

The Pan-London Housing Reciprocal was launched in January and enables people with a social housing tenancy, and who relocate due to a high risk of harm, to move elsewhere in London and retain their security of tenure. They can move somewhere where they will be safe, and not have to choose between security of themselves and security of their housing rights. The majority of London Boroughs (27) and 17 Registered Housing Providers have signed up to the scheme so far, so for some people there should be less of a loss on the domestic violence journey.

For details of how to refer: http://saferlondon.org.uk/pan-london-housing-reciprocal/

Tens of thousands of IDPs in the UK

According to the United Nations[1], the United Kingdom has no Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) or people in IDP-like situations needing protection or assistance by the UNHCR. But is that really the case? Displacement has many causes, but IDPs are generally caused by war and conflict, or by natural disasters, as well as by government policies such as large development projects, or by human rights violations. If a government adequately supports, protects and compensates such displaced persons, then it is not surprising that they do not come under the international concern of the United Nations. However, if, like refugees, they cannot obtain the security and well-being they need from their own government, then they become the concern of the international community. Violence against women is a form of discrimination and a violation of human rights[2], so are the women and children displaced by violence and abuse adequately protected, supported and compensated by the UK Government? Even if we only consider the women and children who go to formal services to escape domestic violence, we are talking about tens of thousands of people in the UK every year – Internally Displaced Persons. Are their human rights really being protected?

[1] UNHCR. 2013. Displacement – The new 21st Century Challenge: UNHCR Global Trends 2012 Available at: http://www.unhcr.org/statistics/country/51bacb0f9/unhcr-global-trends-2012.html

[2] UN. 2006. Ending violence against women: From words to action. Study of the Secretary-General. United Nations, New York. Available at: http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2006/1/ending-violence-against-women-from-words-to-action-study-of-the-secretary-general