Women are calling the domestic abuse bill a sticking plaster at best – they’re not wrong

Three years after it was promised, the legislation still falls short of the measures that could be the difference between life and death for many, writes Harriet Hall

Many groups have reiterated that the bill still lacks promise of equal protection against migrant women (Getty)

On the eve of her 22nd birthday on 1 December 2018, Grace Millane met up with a 27-year-old man on Tinder in Auckland, New Zealand, where she was travelling on her gap year. A week later, her body was found stuffed inside a suitcase in the mountainous Waitakere Ranges. The killer had strangled her to death during sex.

The murderer invoked the “rough sex defence”, also known as the 50 Shades defence, claiming that Millane had died accidentally during consensual intercourse. An ex-boyfriend took the stand to attest to Millane’s predilection for BDSM, and the murdered young woman’s sexual history made headlines across the globe. The killer had taken photographs of her corpse.

Today, the domestic abuse bill – that was last year delayed during the prorogation of parliament – is finally being tabled three years after it was first promised. As part of this, ministers will look at what more can be done to put an end to the “rough sex” defence, which campaign group We Can’t Consent to This says has increased tenfold over the past 20 years.

It’s a promising start – but promises have yet to be made.

The bill also encompasses a new definition of domestic abuse that will include economic abuse and “tech abuse”, described as “where abusers use personal and home devices and smart gadgets to control their victim”; it pledges to ban abusers from cross-examining their victims in the family courts and recommends the use of lie-detector tests on convicted abusers leaving prison who are considered likely to re-offend. A new measure would also require councils to provide safe accommodation for victims and their children.

Women’s Aid has called the return of the legislation “welcome and urgently needed”, describing proposed legal duty of councils to provide refuges as potentially “life-saving”. But the organisation emphasised this would only be the case if it were also “underpinned by sustainable funding for specialist women’s services”. Safe Lives says the bill “will not achieve meaningful change without funding attached”. The charity Crisis has suggested the bill could see abuse victims end up in a bottleneck situation, stuck in temporary accommodation and unable to move on with their lives.

Funding is vital here. Women’s Aid estimates the support required to ensure these measures are properly implemented to be £173m annually. It sounds like a lot but it pales in comparison to the financial cost of domestic violence to the wider economy and victims themselves – £66bn for the year ending 31 March 2017.

Numerous women’s organisations continue to raise concerns that cuts to services explain the UK’s continued delay to ratify the Istanbul Convention, which was signed by David Cameron in 2012 and remains the most comprehensive existing legal framework to tackle violence against women and girls. The domestic abuse bill, campaigners argue, does not even meet the basic requirements of this convention.

And, of course, uncertainty abounds as to how funding for women’s services will fare after Brexit.

Many groups have also reiterated that the bill still lacks promise of equal protection against migrant women. The Step Up Migrant Women coalition – of more than 40 Bame specialist services and organisations – argues that the bill still falls short of protecting all victims. Currently, women with insecure immigration status face barriers to protection.

And what of prevention? Recent changes to the school curriculum will see the introduction of abuse awareness, but society continues to tacitly ignore, joke about and tolerate abuse in all its horrifying guises. Misogyny is still not classed as a hate crime in the UK.

The Women’s Equality Party has described the bill as “one of the most over-announced and under-delivered bills in recent political history”. It has criticised the government for re-announcing the bill as “part of the package of ‘women’s announcements’ that are usually made at this time of year”; virtue-signalling in extremis.

Last year, domestic abuse rose by 24 per cent while referrals for prosecution were down 11 per cent. So while the domestic abuse bill is promising, it isn’t enough. We don‘t have time to wait; saving women’s lives must be a priority.