Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual campaign that began on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It and runs until International Human Rights Day on 10 December and is a good opportunity to revisit policy and practice on domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse remains a significant problem in Scotland, and 14% of all homeless applications are because of domestic abuse. Seventy-eight per cent of these are women who have left abusive partners. We don’t know how many women continue to stay with abusive partners because of issues of poverty, with the cost of living crisis making things even worse. Social landlords have a duty of care to women (and it is predominantly women) and their children, and responding to domestic abuse is linked directly to many priorities facing landlords, including preventing homelessness, child protection and tenants’ safety, to name just a few.

Social landlords have a key role to play and are in a good position to support women experiencing abuse. They can help to prevent homelessness and support them to remain safely in their homes or to move home if that is appropriate. People will remember the CIH campaign from four years ago ‘Make a Stand’ where many housing associations publicly committed to taking action against domestic abuse Tackling domestic abuse – Make a stand – Chartered Institute of Housing (cih.org). Its also worth revisiting the good practice guide published in 2019 to support social landlords to develop their policy and practice.  Domestic-abuse-guidance-for-social-landlords-FINAL.pdf (womensaid.scot)

More recently, the Scottish Government has committed to introducing legislation in a Housing Bill which will make it mandatory for housing associations to have a policy and implementation plan on domestic abuse and legislation, still to be enacted, is already in place to enable women to stay in their homes and retain their tenancy. Now is a good time to review policies, in advance of legislation, to make sure we are doing as much as possible to support victims and survivors of abuse.