Issue - meetings

[Report of the Director for Public Health. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Communities.]The Violence Against Women and Girls 2016-2026 Strategy outlines Haringey's approach to addressing and preventing violence against women and girls in the next ten years.

The Cabinet Member for Communities introduced the report which sought agreement to a 10 year Violence against Women and Girls Strategy (2016-2026).

The Strategy set out, in detail, the borough’s strategic approach to not just improving the health, safety and wellbeing of women and girls in the borough but also ensuring  that they can have fulfilling lives. It had been completed alongside community organisations and voluntary sector in the borough and advocated a co-ordinated community response whilst also emphasising the importance of holding perpetrators to account.

The Council drew up the draft strategy with the community and launched a  10 week consultation on the strategy which had elicited over 300 responses. It was important to note that  90% of the young people responding to the consultation were under the age of 18 which helped taking forward the early preventative nature of this work.

In response to Councillor Engert’s questions the following information was noted:

• This was an overarching strategy which included all forms of violence against women and girls. A lot of the forms of violence were interconnected and the strategy considered similar causes and how to develop a co-ordinated community response. In terms of FGM , there was a  need to  consider a co-ordinated response  and not have different forms of violence dealt with in different ways.

• Councillor Ayisi clarified that when considering and extrapolating London data, on the forms of violence against women and girls, then there could be 3500 cases of FGM in the borough but this was not an actual factual figure but an estimated assessment. However the strategy did encourage more reporting of all forms of violence which was a positive way forward.

• The Leader advised that the issue of FGM had also been discussed at Health and Wellbeing Board and assured Cllr Engert that dealing with this in a co-ordinated partner approach was a priority that would not be lost sight of.

RESOLVED

1.    To consider and take into account the feedback from the consultation and the equalities impact assessment;

2.    To approve the Violence against Women and Girls Strategy (2016-2026) and to support the future development of action plans that underpin the  work of the Strategy.

Reasons for decision

The Strategy sets out our 10 year ambitions (2016-2026) for addressing and preventing violence against women and girls in Haringey.

The Strategy covers four key priorities: developing a coordinated community response; prevention; support for victim/survivors and holding perpetrators accountable.

The Strategy has been developed in partnership with a wide range of statutory, voluntary and community organisations from across Haringey. We have utilised existing evidence around ‘what works’ in addressing and preventing violence against women and girls. We will ensure that we co-produce all of our action plans with communities and survivors to ensure that we deliver meaningful change.

We have consulted widely with partners and local residents over a 10 week period to ensure that we have ensured that our approach will work with all stakeholders across the borough (see 6.3).

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