Labour must join the dots between the Rochdale sexual exploitation scandal and the Megan Stammers case

As Labour Party Conference opens this weekend, a critical question needs to be asked of our political leaders: what links the disappearance of 15 year old Megan Stammers and her teacher Jeremy Forrest with the Rochdale sexual exploitation scandal, and George Galloway’s bombastic and ill-informed remarks over the summer about rape and the Julian Assange case? Apparently not much if you listen to politicians and commentators. Despite the commitment by all the main political parties to tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) in an integrated and coordinated way, we still don’t seem to be able to join the dots.

And yet these are all linked by forms of violence against women and girls which are rooted in women and girls’ inequality. These crimes are tolerated and fostered by a culture in which the same kinds of prejudicial attitudes and lack of understanding of consent exposed by the Assange case also led to the authorities in Rochdale failing to take action to protect girls who reported their abuse.

However, politicians of all parties in Westminster have failed to embed a genuinely coordinated and cross-government approach to this critical issue and it is to the detriment of women and girls in their local communities around the country.

Let’s be clear – Labour has much to be proud about. When in government, its women MPs and Ministers, notably Harriet Harman and Vera Baird, drove progress on policy on domestic violence in particular but also rape, trafficking and other forms of violence against women in girls. In late 2009, Labour published the first Westminster strategy on violence against women and girls – something our members have long-campaigned for and a critical turning point in ensuring that action on rape, domestic violence, trafficking and sexual exploitation, forced marriage and FGM is joined up. Since then, in Opposition, Yvette Cooper and her colleagues have consistently raised the impact of the cuts on women’s safety and access to refuge and other women’s support services.

There is broad cross-party consensus on the need for a strategic approach to ending violence against women and girls (VAWG), and the Coalition Government published its own VAWG strategy soon after taking office in November 2010. Conservative MP Jane Ellison is unparalleled in parliament for her work on FGM (an issue that seemed to be missing from Labour’s campaign for the London Mayoral elections this year).

Labour’s ongoing Everywoman Safe Everywhere Commission chaired by Vera Baird sends a strong message to women about the importance with which the party takes this issue, as does the priority of VAWG for its Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) candidates. But, whilst the party should be leading the way in developing a comprehensive set of policies and actions to eradicate violence against women, its policy review process has left a vacuum on this issue. For example, the long-promised plan to ensure sustainable and long-term funding of specialist domestic violence provision, Rape Crisis Centres and support for ethnic minority women experiencing violence has never materialised.

There is now consensus about the need to prevent violence before it begins, rather than treat it as an inevitable problem we just need to address through the criminal justice system. But there has been little progress towards this goal; despite the clear gains to be made in terms of women’s health and well-being, and cost to the public purse, no party has yet set out a long-term programme of action to prevent violence. Work with young people in schools is vital to tackle harmful attitudes and behaviours and offer information and support in the event of abuse. In this context, Michael Gove’s retreat from Sex and Relationships Education is extremely worrying and we want to see Labour challenging the way education policies are failing to ensure girls and young women are safe. This should be a no-brainer: Labour was committed to making Personal Social Health and Economic (PSHE) education a statutory obligation before the last general election and needs to restate this commitment. PCCs can also take a strong lead in local areas on tackling harmful attitudes, and funding support services.

New technologies have led to a proliferation of sexist and sexualised imagery of women across the media and Labour initiated reviews into the sexualisation of childhood when in office. It should now be firmly asserting a feminist response to David Cameron’s follow up work in this area but the debate about ISP filters to tackle access to pornography, for example, has been left to Christian moralists and libertarians to battle it out from wholly ungendered perspectives.

Perhaps most of all we want to see leadership from Labour – men and women speaking out to say that violence against women and girls will never be tolerated, no matter who it is perpetrated by, and a commitment to action under a future Labour government to ensure survivors are supported and ongoing work to prevent the problem in the first place. A forthcoming law in Wales to ensure public bodies take strategic action on this issue is a model we should be looking at. I will be discussing these issues at the National Women’s Conference this weekend and hope that you will join the debate.

Holly Dustin is  Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition