Funding cut for education initiatives as concern grows
By Lesley Walsh
VIOLENCE against women and girls rose by seven per cent in Ards and North Down last year as funding for popular education initiatives in local schools ran out.
Amid concerns of a ‘national emergency’ in the levels of violence against women and girls, a local charity has said not enough money is being spent on educating young people in the borough on healthy relationships and the dangers of misogyny.
Last week a report by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) revealed two million women a year were estimated to be victims of male violence, in England and Wales.
North Down and Ards Women’s Aid has confirmed that the increase in violence against women and girls is on the rise locally. There was a seven per cent rise in violence in 2023 with 554 referrals to the charity for refuge and for its wider support services.
A senior official at the local charity has also outlined how local schools, colleges and youth groups are on a waiting list for the charity’s youth courses on healthy relationships and the warning signs women should look out for when they turn sour.
Emalyn Turkington, CEO of North Down and Ards Women’s Aid, said education was increasingly important in light of the NPCC warnings that young men were being ‘radicalised’ online by influencers such as Andrew Tate.
However, she stressed not enough funding is being channeled into this vital area of education.
“This comes back to education,” she said. “We need relationship and sexual education in our schools,” stressing it should be done as early as primary school level.
She said a Women’s Aid’s six week course, entitled the Safe Relationship Awareness Programme, had been carried out in local schools including St Columbanus College in Bangor, St Columba’s College in Portaferry, the South Eastern Regional College and a number of local youth groups – but more were on waiting lists.
A short taster course was carried out at Regent House Grammar School in Newtownards, but funding has now run out, preventing the charity from carrying out the full six week long course.
“The funding for that was for one year, through the Oak Foundation, via the Community Fund NI, but that has just finished and we have schools that are on waiting lists for the course but we just don’t have the money,” said Ms Turkington.
The courses highlight what healthy relationships look like and advise on the warning signs of unhealthy relationships, from unwanted and insistent texting by partners.
The course also signposts young people to sources of help if required.
Commenting further on details within the NPCC report, Ms Turkington agreed that locally there had been more instances of crimes against women using weapons, like crossbows, and offences like non-fatal strangulation of women, ‘being driven by extreme material on the internet’.
The women’s advocate said the need to fund these educational services was reflected in the broader need for proper investment to tackle violence against females.
“We would be calling for our politicians and ministers to ring fence funding to implement the Domestic and Sexual Abuse Strategy and the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy,” she said.
She said year one of the Department of Justice’s draft Domestic and Sexual Abuse Strategy 2023 to 2030 has ended without implementation of its action plans.
The DoJ strategy sets out its commitment to fully implementing this strategy over the next seven years but concedes ‘full implementation of the strategy is subject to confirmation of additional funding’.
Ms Turkington has welcomed it but stressed it has yet to bear fruit.
“It’s brilliant that we have this but it needs to be implemented. It needs to be more than paper. Let’s put money behind this because we need to make it work for women and for survivors of domestic abuse,” she said.
In addition, the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, consulted on last year by the Northern Ireland Executive Office was also ‘being looked at but it’s not yet been implemented’ either.
Meanwhile, violence against women continues, with one recent local tragedy illustrating the need for firm action.
“From 2020 we have had 20 women murdered in their own homes in Northern Ireland,” she said, the last being pensioner Patricia Aust, who was killed in Bangor on June 2.
“It’s time for our government in Northern Ireland to make this a priority, not an add on, but a priority,” she stressed.
Contact North Down and Ards Women’s Aid on 028 9127 3196, or visit https://www.ndawomensaid.org/ or contac the Domestic and Sexual Abuse Helpline on 0808 802 1414 or help@dsahelpline.org.
