Subtext Magazine - Aug 2008

Darlene Corry Policy Officer at the Women's Resource Centre highlights the dangerous crisis that hangs over Rape Crisis in Britain.

Recent research by the Women's Resource Centre (WRC) and Rape Crisis (England and Wales), The Crisis in Rape Crisis, shows that Rape Crisis centres are spectacularly under-funded.

35 of the 38 centres affiliated to the national network, Rape Crisis (England and Wales), took part in this survey. Their combined annual income is just over £3.5m. For comparison, Victim Support received £30m from the Government in 2005-06. In 2004-05 the Government spent twice as much as Rape Crisis centres combined annual income each week on advertising and public relations. The average annual income for centres is £81,598 – only marginally more than the cost, to the state, of one rape.

Yet we know that the prevalence of sexual violence is appallingly high, with an estimated 80,000 women experiencing rape each year. The impact of sexual violence can be significant and long-term, including physical and mental health, ability to work or study, and disruption in intimate relationships. The cost to the state of sexual violence was £8.5 billion in 2003-04, with much of this cost being lost outputs, due to long term health issues.

Rape Crisis centres provide essential, long-term support to thousands of women and girls across the UK. They are a crucial support service for women who have suffered historic abuse, such as childhood sexual assault, and the majority of women and girls who access centres do not report to the police.

Because the impact of sexual violence is often enduring and far reaching, Rape Crisis centres provide long-term counselling, support and advocacy. They are independent, women-centred, provide holistic support, and work to empower women and girls to take control back over their lives.

Yet many survivors currently do not receive the support they need. Other research (Map of Gaps, 2007) shows that most women do not have access to a Rape Crisis centre, with patchy service provision amounting to a postcode lottery. And Rape Crisis centres are facing a funding crisis, which has seen nine centres close in the last five years, and many others struggle to find funding to provide essential services to survivors of sexual violence. 69% of centres identify that their funding is unsustainable, and the constant and ongoing struggle to access funding is impacting heavily on centres’ ability to continue providing essential services to survivors of sexual violence.

This funding crisis reflects the crisis facing the women’s voluntary and community sector, which has seen large numbers of well-established women’s organisations closing due to lack of funding. Women’s organisations make up 7% of the voluntary and community sector, yet only receive 1.2% of central Government funding.

In 2006, the Women’s Resource Centre (WRC) launched our why women? campaign, in support of the women’s organisations who do great work for women and society as a whole, but are under threat from lack of funding. We are calling on the government to put gender back on the agenda by:

• acknowledging the systematic disadvantage women face because of their gender, and
• publicly recognising the essential services and expertise the women's voluntary and community sector provides.
  

We started this campaign because women’s organisations were telling us that they were hitting the wall. Experienced, professional and much needed women’s organisations, with decades of experience, were closing down because of lack of funding. The shift from grant-based funding to commissioning (where Government sets out a specific contract of work for tender, rather than providing grants for what the sector identifies is needed) was impacting harshly on smaller and marginalised groups, which covers the vast majority of women’s organisations. And we were witnessing the insidious creep of gender-neutral policy and practice, which insisted that there was no need for women’s organisations – despite all the evidence to the contrary.

The political landscape has seemingly shifted away from a common-sense understanding that women’s organisations and women-only services are necessary and wanted, across a range of contexts, to an over-simplified version of equality where ‘equal’ simply means ‘the same’ – the same treatment, the same services. This is despite, and in direct contradiction to, new legislation (the Gender Equality Duty), which came into force in April 2007. It requires public bodies to promote equality of opportunity and eliminate discrimination, and articulates clearly that promoting equality between women and men means identifying and meeting their specific needs.

The Government acknowledges in their Sexual Violence and Abuse Action Plan that sexual violence is a gendered crime, overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women and children. And that this crime is both a cause and a consequence of gender inequality. However, in the survey many Rape Crisis centres gave examples of statutory agencies refusing to fund them because they were women-only, or pressuring them to deliver services to men. The government acknowledges that “sexual violence and childhood sexual abuse are two of the most serious and damaging crimes in our society”, and that sexual violence is both a cause and consequence of gender inequality, with most perpetrators of sexual violence being male, and most victims being female. Yet this has not filtered down to understanding or supporting the need for women-only services.

The main focus of the Government remains firmly on challenging the unacceptably low rape conviction rate of 5.7%, which strongly indicates that survivors of sexual violence are not receiving justice in the criminal justice system. Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs), which were developed to ensure high quality criminal justice responses to survivors of (primarily recent) sexual assault, are essential – but only part of the picture.

SARCs are statutory led and generally provide services to those who have been recently assaulted, including forensic examinations and medical care, whereas Rape Crisis centres are independent, provide long-term support and women-only space, and support survivors who have experienced recent and historic assault, including adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and/or have complex needs. Indeed, the majority of women who accessed Rape Crisis centres last year were presenting with experiences of sexual violence that happened in the past.

Securing a criminal conviction is not the only outcome that survivors of sexual violence say they want or need. What is urgently needed is ‘parallel justice’, which focuses on both criminal justice and social justice. There needs to be a focus on the support needs of survivors of sexual violence, alongside the need to punish the perpetrators of such crimes.

Yet this is a partial success story, of the power of collective strength. The day after this research was launched, Harriet Harman (Minister for Women) announced emergency funding of £1 million would be given to rape crisis centres. Many voices have been calling for better funding for rape crisis centres – The End Violence Against Women coalition, whose Map of Gaps research found that most women do not have access to a rape crisis centre; the New Statesman campaign, publishing articulate, powerful and key voices over an entire month; the NCVO campaign to highlight compact breaches of short-term funding and late notice over grants; the Fawcett campaign, the Women’s National Commission, and others.

Not to mention Rape Crisis centres themselves, who have invested considerable time and energy engaging in endless Government consultations, meetings and surveys – all of which takes them away from essential front-line work with women survivors. Alongside this policy and media lobbying, we had thousands of women marching to end violence against women for the Million Women Rise march this International Women’s Day, alongside the re-emergence over the last few years of Reclaim the Night, and many grassroots feminist groups and collectives.

But £1m is not enough. It will stop the imminent closure of currently operating Rape Crisis centres this year, but will not address the underlying lack of sustainability of the sector. So we are asking people to keep the pressure on, to demand that the government prioritise the needs of women and girls who are survivors of sexual violence. Many women and girls will experience sexual violence – and they deserve to have the choice to access specialist support that meets their needs. This can only happen if the sustainability of the Rape Crisis sector is urgently addressed.

Actions

• If you think support for women and girls to rebuild their lives after sexual violence must be a right, not a privilege determined by a postcode lottery, then there are simple actions you can take to make a difference, such as writing to your MP, your local council, your local PCT, or talking to your mates and workmates, showing the why women? film (a short documentary about women’s organisations, including rape crisis centres).

• You can also sign up to our letter to Gordon Brown, calling for adequate, sustainable and long-term funding for Rape Crisis centres. And you can sign up and support a number of other campaigns calling for better funding, such as the New Statesman campaign, the End Violence Against Women petition, and the why women? campaign.

• To check out our action sheet, with loads of ideas for things you can do, as well as a range of campaign information and resources, and to download The Crisis in Rape Crisis, go to www.wrc.org.uk