Support for Black Victims of Domestic Abuse Debate

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Department: Home Office

Support for Black Victims of Domestic Abuse

Diane Abbott Excerpts
Monday 28th March 2022

(2 years ago)

Westminster Hall
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Diane Abbott Portrait Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
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It is a pleasure to speak in this important debates, Sir Christopher. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) on her very informed and cogent speech. I point out to the Minister that we have an unusually large number of black people in the public gallery, which demonstrates the tremendous concern in all parts of the community about the issue. I hope that an acknowledgement of that concern will be reflected in what she has to say.

I want to start by talking about Valerie Forde, because we are talking about Valerie’s law. As we have heard, she died in particularly tragic and violent circumstances in 2014 and it will be the anniversary of her death in three days. Although Valerie was a victim of domestic violence, she was much more than just a victim. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) says, she was a vibrant woman who was extremely important and respected in her community. I think that her friends and family would want her to be remembered like that, for their contribution to the community.

As we have heard, Sistah Space has done tremendous work gathering all these thousands of signatures. Sistah Space has existed since 2015, but many of the women associated with it have been active in the community for much longer than that. The last time I saw some of them, last weekend, we were out campaigning on Child Q. I will just say a few sentences on Child Q, because that case reflects some of the institutional racism that Valerie’s law is meant to address.

One thing that has emerged in the work and campaigning sufferers have done on the case is the wholly disproportionate number of black children who are strip searched in London. We have some figures available, but I would say that they are almost certainly an underestimate. What strikes me in listening to accounts of what happened to Child Q is that the police came and strip searched her—and they did not just strip search her, they treated her physically in an extremely degrading way—and then went back to the station. They did not tell their sergeant and or anybody. For them, it was all in a day’s work. That they were so casual about that extremely degrading strip search tells me that they have done it more often than the official figures reflect. I have still not had it explained to me why there are teachers in Hackney who think that the appropriate thing to do if they think they smell cannabis on a school child is not to let the parents know, but to call the police, and that that will deal with the issue. There is a lot more to say about Child Q, and I am sure that the opportunity to do so will come up in this Parliament.

On Valerie’s law and black women victims of domestic violence, when I was listening to my colleagues, I was thinking of my mother, who never suffered physical violence but was the subject of extreme coercive control to the extent that she eventually moved out of our home, leaving my father, my brother and me. My father being no kind of feminist, I had to do all the housework and cooking when she left. What he did to upset me, and to point out his feelings about my mother, was to get a photograph of her, slash it with a knife, scribble red ink on it and pin it above the cooker, because he knew I would have to look at the picture three times a day.

My mother would never have dreamed of going to an institution, to a community group or to the state in any form whatsoever. That was 40 years ago, but I think that one of the issues around black women and domestic violence even today is that reluctance to go to institutions—partly through pride, partly through a fear of institutions, partly through an acceptance of patriarchy. That is why we need organisations such as Sistah Space, which can reach out to those women, and support and enable them to engage with the institutions that they need to engage with. Sistah Space is doing very valuable work. We know that black women are particularly vulnerable to domestic abuse and that they do not get the service and the care that they should from some institutions.

Just this afternoon, I spoke to a constituent who has been the victim of domestic abuse. She has been treated very poorly by the police at Stoke Newington police station and by the Crown Prosecution Service. Her husband was convicted of domestic violence, but he appealed and got off. In the end, the court was not willing to accept her word or her son’s word—he witnessed what happened—and her husband was released from prison and continues to harass her. People sometimes talk about domestic violence as if it happens only to ordinary women. This woman is a very educated middle-class woman, and she is clearly completely traumatised by the physical domestic abuse that she has endured. She relates a lack of concern, poor treatment, an unwillingness to take a proper statement and all the other issues around the police, and if a highly educated woman like her can be treated so unprofessionally and so dismissively by the police, what happens to women who perhaps do not have her confidence?

As colleagues have said, there is clearly a real need for training in all aspects of domestic violence and women of colour, be they the cultural and even well-founded fear of going to institutions to complain about their partners or husbands, simple things such as being able to recognise bruises on black skin, or being able to understand the society and culture of black and minority ethnic communities. Clearly, there is an important need for training in all the institutions that deal with victims of domestic violence.

I would also say that, although in the short term we need the training, in the medium to long term we need to see black people in those institutions, whether as social workers and police officers or in management positions where they can take decisions. In the end, that is what will make it possible for people like my constituent or even my mother to go forward and talk about some of the things they are suffering. But in the immediate short term, there has long been a need for proper training.

I hope the Minister has listened to my colleagues and seen the concern of the public, and will be able to come forward with a constructive response to what the petition for Valerie’s law is asking.

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Abena Oppong-Asare Portrait Abena Oppong-Asare
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First, I thank Sistah Space for all its campaigning, particularly its hard work in supporting victims of domestic abuse. I also thank Valerie’s daughter for allowing us to share her story so that we can get mandatory training for people and organisations such as the police and other agencies.

I also thank hon. Members for their contributions on how things can be done better for victims of domestic abuse, particularly black victims. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) spoke about Valerie and the impact on her family. My hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) and for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) also spoke, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) for sharing her personal story. It is not easy to share such stories, so I thank her for doing so. I also thank the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald). As we know, the hard work has already been done by Sistah Space, so there is no reason why the training should not be put in place.

I thank the Minister for her approach to this debate. I welcome what she said about arranging a meeting with Sistah Space and the College of Policing. I am sure that Sistah Space will agree that that is a massive, positive step forward, so I thank the Minister for that.

I look forward to seeing the domestic abuse plan in detail. I will see that before I make any further comments. I welcome the guidance and new training for engagement with groups, but Sistah Space also needs to feed into it, along with relevant organisations that support black victims of domestic abuse, to ensure we get this right and no one is left behind. I spoke to Sistah Space before the debate and it said that the experience is so distressing for black women, and that that is so frustrating. We need to recognise people’s trauma when they share their stories. As my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall said, many people have not spoken about their stories and it can be extremely triggering to do so. That even includes talking to the police about their experiences, because they may not always be taken seriously.

Diane Abbott Portrait Ms Abbott
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We all agree on the issues in relation to domestic violence and women of African and Caribbean descent, but there are also issues facing our south Asian sisters. As well as looking at issues in relation to black women, it is important that the Minister pays attention to the work being done by groups such as Southall Black Sisters.

Abena Oppong-Asare Portrait Abena Oppong-Asare
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I thank my right hon. Friend for mentioning the work of Southall Black Sisters. I know that the Minister works closely with them. This debate is a positive step forwards and I look forward to my meeting shortly with the Minister and Sistah Space to talk about next steps.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 578416, relating to support for Black victims of domestic abuse.