UK and Welsh Government Progress

35%

35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence5 .

7%

Globally, 7% of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner5 .

38%

Globally, 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner5 .

200 million women have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting6 .

71%

Furthermore, it is estimated that 40.3 million people are enslaved of which 71% are women7 .

This issue is not only devastating for survivors of violence and their families, but also entails significant social and economic costs. In some countries, VAWG is estimated to cost countries up to 3.7% of their GDP more than double what most governments spend on education. Overall, in the year ending 31 March 2017, domestic abuse is estimated to have cost over £66 billion in England and Wales according to a report by the Home Office8. The costs are related to providing health and social care services and include legal costs. However, they exclude the cost to the victims in terms of unfulfilled potential and the impact on their longterm physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. From signing and ratifying the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other legally binding international treaties, to policies, strategies and legislations put in place by the UK and Welsh Governments, tackling violence against women and girls has become part of the political agenda in recent years and it is now a key priority for both governments.

UK and Welsh Government Progress

Since 2013 there have been some significant developments in policy and legislation by both the UK and Welsh governments. Legislation is now in place for England and Wales including specific offences of stalking, forced marriage, failure to protect from FGM and intimate image abuse, as well as the domestic abuse offence to capture coercive or controlling behaviour in an intimate or family relationships. In 2015 the landmark Modern Slavery Act was introduced, along with FGM Protection Orders and an FGM mandatory reporting duty. In Wales, we also saw the introduction of the Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act in 2015. A search of the legislation.gov.uk website finds 23 results of UK primary and secondary legislation relating to domestic violence from 2013xi. The Destitute Domestic Violence Concession (DDVC)xii formerly the Sojourner Project, remains in place and enables partners/ spouses of British citizens or people with indefinite leave to remain (ILR) and women on spousal visas to access public funds for 3 months if they are eligible to apply for ILR under the Domestic Violence Rule. Destitution in this context is a complex consideration, and is set out in UK government guidancexiii. For survivors of trafficking and modern slavery there is a package of specialist support that can be accessed following referral to the National Referral Mechanism and a positive reasonable grounds decision whilst they await a conclusive grounds decision. After that they may apply for discretionary ILR.

xi All legislation can be found at www.legislation.gov.uk xii DDV Concession: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/679269/victims-of-domestic-violence-and-abuse-DDV-concession-v1_0.pdf xiii For more information as to how destitution is assessed see : https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/845235/assessing-destitution-v3.0-ext.pdf