Select committee: Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 14
Sixth Report - So-called honour-based abuse
Published 19 Jul 2023
Paragraph 75
Addressed to Government Equalities Office
Women and Equalities Committee So-called honour-based abuse All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Support for Migrant Victims Scheme pilot has been valuable and we welcome its extension to 2025. However, there are shortfalls in funding to support victims with no recourse to public funds. We are concerned this is aggravated by the Government’s reservation on Article 59 of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (the ‘Istanbul Convention’). In order to help limit perpetrators’ ability to use a victim’s immigration status as a tool for control, the Government should reconsider its reservation to Article 59 of the Istanbul Convention. It should also consider extending eligibility to the Destitute Domestic Violence Concession scheme and Domestic Violence Indefinite Leave to Remain to all migrant victims.
From: Women and Equalities Committee, Sixth Report - So-called honour-based abuse (HC 831), paragraph 75, 19 July 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 15 September 2023 (deadline 19 September 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government responds to the Committee's report by stating that it is committed to tackling so-called honour-based abuse, accepting some measures but giving reasons for not adopting others, including a statutory definition, a data-sharing firewall and a separate strategy for male victims.
- On a statutory definition, it says it is "not clear that making the definition statutory would improve understanding of or the response to these crimes", but "will continue to keep this under review".
- On a firewall between the police and the Home Office, it states that "It would not be appropriate to introduce such restrictions on data sharing". It remains committed to an Immigration Enforcement Migrant Victims Protocol, to be implemented "later this year".
- On recording, it says a specific area is being developed within the Crime Recording Rules on information to collect from HBA victims, to be communicated to all forces once completed. On Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment questions on HBA, it gives reasons for not including them.
- On the Istanbul Convention Article 59 reservation, it is "carefully considering" the pilot evaluation and will communicate its decision. It will continue to fund the Support for Migrant Victims scheme until 2024-25.