Domestic Violence and Intersectional Services
In the last post I tried to set out the ways in which victims and survivors can be helped by changing the structural and institutional systems that have been letting them down, all of which requires an investment by the government. I also wanted to do a separate post on how multiple disadvantages make victim - survivors more vulnerable and what kinds of specialist services are needed for them. This post is separate because this deserves enough space to be explored fully, not because it’s an optional add on to ‘mainstream’ services.
Firstly, it’s important to identify who needs specialist services. It’s true that the majority of victim - survivors of domestic abuse that we are currently aware of are cis gendered, heterosexual females. This is partly because of the ways in which the patriarchy and toxic masculinity reach through our wider society and institutions into our personal relationships. It’s also because the way in which we measure domestic abuse can’t uncover every case, because not every victim- survivor is able to come forward. It’s also true that the groups we identify as having intersecting disadvantages such as poverty, BME people, refugees, asylum seekers, trafficked people, disabled people, LGBTQ people etc are additionally vulnerable because of the complexities of their intersecting disadvantages. But we only need to strictly quantify how many of which groups experience domestic violence if we are restricting resources, guessing how many people need a service, and only providing space for a limited number of people. Frankly, the way we approach service provision is completely backwards. Instead of spending a huge amount of time and resources trying to establish need, then restricting it, we need to create the services that people need when they need it. We’ve ended up with the genuinely awful result being that having more provision than is needed is somehow seen as worse than not having literally life saving services available for people when they need them. It’s implied that inefficient services in the form of spare spaces in refuges is more immoral a circumstance than leaving victim - survivors in danger because there are not enough spaces in refuges. Just let that sink in for a moment.
The reason this focus on efficency has been so effective in triggering and maintaining austerity is that we are still being manipulated to believe that we don’t have enough resources as a country to provide people with the social care which ensures their basic human rights. This simply isn't true. Changes in the way taxs are applied to the people and buisnesses that have the most money and power have meant that they have ever more billions of profit, while the poorest people are just getting poorer. We are told to believe that these buisnesses, for which profit is the only important thing for them to maintain, will choose to provide wages which mean we have a basic standard of living, and choose to give enough money to charities which will step in when government services can't provide social support. We are supposed to trust that those who have power will choose to weild it benevolently, when we can all around us that they don't. Only within the past few years have we seen people with millions choose to keep their money and dissolve a buisness, leaving people not only unempoyed, but without pensions. And these are the people we are supposed to trust with our wellbeing? Our basic human rights?
The same thought process that governments have only a few resources, and that this is somehow inherent and not chosen, is also applied to specialist domestic violence services, leaving people in serious danger. If those who do have power simply choose not to give away 'their' money, or focus it on a different cause, then people are left with nothing. There might only be one disabled black poor refugee trans man in need of a service especially tailored to their particular needs, but that only means they need more support, not that we can dismiss them as a statistical anomaly and abandon them. This is why protecting human rights is so important; it sets out, in law, that we are all equal and we have basic rights, simply becuase we exist. But how, pragmatically, could this work in practice? What is needed is investment in services which are flexible, service providers who are specialists, and housing which is adaptable. We already know what is needed, and it really comes down in every case to the application of compassionate care and the upholding of basic human rights.
All of this costs a lot of money, but even if people don’t believe we have a moral imperative to do this, economically in the long term, the pay off is huge. Not only is money saved in the long term through the reduction of using other inappropriate emergency services, but the ability of victim-survivors to be able to contribute economically and socially is vastly improved and continues to improve. Again, we exist in a capitalist society where profit growth is believed to be unending and good, but the growth of social services is also believed to be unending and bad? Neither of these beliefs are true; we absolutely can’t have ever growing capitalism and we also won’t have ever growing social services if we invest in long term solutions. We can choose to have much more steady flows of capital and if we fully invest in social care, and the long term effect is a reduction in overall need through prevention. Instead of carrying on with a boom-bust economic cycle which is erratic and short term, a less extreme variation in growth will provide a stability that enables us to always provide social care to everyone who needs it, when they need it, with a buffer for when we go through a period of economic loss.
This month, Amnesty International is continuing their Write for Rights campaign and one of the groups they are focussing on is migrant women and children in the UK who are in danger because of domestic violence. Often these women and children receive no support at all - instead they are referred to immigration officials and deported. Victim - survivors deserve to have their safety and wellbeing considered first, above and beyond any migration issues, because a life free from violence and abuse is a human right. This is one of those awful situations that reminds us why human rights had to be codified in the UNDHR in the first place - we actually have to legislate the basic compassion and care of other human beings in our society, because if we don’t we cannot trust our governments to do so. We should not need to do this, but we do. The good news is, Write for Rights works. It only takes a few minutes to send an e-mail online through the website, or write a letter of support, and things really do change. If you would like to, you can visit the website below and give hope and help to people who need it most.
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