Walking home

Last week, one that was book-ended by International Women’s Day and Mothering Sunday, a young woman was abducted and murdered whilst walking home in London, allegedly by a serving Met Police Officer. A peaceful vigil held in her memory on Clapham Common was interrupted by what many people regard as heavy-handed policing.

This has sparked a long-overdue national conversation about women’s safety both in public places and in the home. #NotAllMen trended on Twitter, swiftly followed by #AllWomen. Both can be true at the same time.

I write this as a 43 year-old woman whose first experience of sexual harassment occurred at the age of 14 on a packed London tube train and whose most recent experience occurred 28 years later, once again on a busy tube train. (I’m acutely aware that worse things happen on a daily basis to many people.) Forgive me for saying that not much seems to have changed in my lifetime.

Actually, that last statement is incorrect. Things have changed, but not for the better.

·        In the year to 31 March 2020, 58,856 cases of rape were recorded by police forces in England and Wales (source: CPS).

·        These led to 2,102 prosecutions being brought, a fall of 30% compared to the previous year (source: CPS).

·        Of these prosecutions, 1,439 resulted in a conviction, a fall of 25% on the previous year (source: CPS).

·        In the UK, domestic abuse will affect 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men in their lifetime (source: LWA).

·        At least 116 women were murdered by men in the UK in 2019 (source: Counting Dead Women).

·        In the past decade there have been 4,493 male victims and 2,075 female victims of murder in the UK (source: BBC).

The work that many charities do to help surviving victims has therefore never been more important or more needed. Charities that have been suggested by our donors and have received donations from ShareGift over the years include: Victim Support (￡168,000), Refuge (￡82,500), Women’s Aid (￡16,250), Solace Women’s Aid (￡7,500), Rape Crisis (￡5,000), and Safe In Sussex (￡3,500).

It’s not enough though, for charities to be endlessly picking up the pieces. The criminal justice system needs to be resourced and empowered to prosecute these crimes both swiftly and fairly. The Government’s Domestic Abuse Bill is expected to receive Royal Asset next month, and introduces a range of new offences under the law. But courts in England and Wales have been struggling with a chronic backlog of all types of cases, exacerbated by the impact of the pandemic. An investment of ￡450m has helped magistrates courts to make inroads into their backlog of cases and crown court cases have just fallen to pre-pandemic levels.

However, there are currently 54,000 cases with trial dates scheduled in 2022 (source: Hansard) and at least 15 crown court trials have been delayed until 2023 (source: The Times). Justice delayed is justice denied, and many domestic abuse victims drop out of legal cases altogether due to court delays (source: The Independent).

Things need to change in our society, too. What can we do as ordinary citizens? What can we also do as people working in the third sector or in the corporate sphere? Here’s a list as a starting point:

-         For men, if you haven’t already asked the women in your life about ways in which you can help all women feel safer when out and about, please do have those conversations;

-         For everyone, please offer help and speak up if you see someone being harassed in public;

-         For charities, please get in touch with us if you would like our help in accessing share donations as an income stream;

-         For those working in the corporate sphere, please get in touch with us to find out more about easy ways to facilitate share giving by your shareholders.