Statement from our CEO, Ciara Bergman
In delivering her Autumn Budget yesterday, the Chancellor reassured us that a better Britain is in reach - one in which we can all look outwards in confidence, and be hopeful for our shared future. But whilst the lifting of the two-child benefit cap also - thankfully - means scrapping its appalling rape exemption clause (which forced women to ‘prove’ they had been raped in order to qualify for it), there was little else within yesterday’s announcements that will have given Rape Crisis Centres or the survivors they support much cause for confidence or hope.
We believe that can change, and hope that it will. The government’s manifesto pledge to halve violence against women and girls was a turning point - a moment of relief and belief as the specialist women’s services trying to meet ever increasing need started to believe there could be an end in sight to the chronic underfunding and daily grind of having to make impossible choices about who they could help within the constraints of inconceivably limited resources.
There was no mention of that manifesto pledge yesterday, but the government’s upcoming VAWG strategy is an opportunity to restore hope and confidence to our sector, and to survivors. It should and must start with dramatically increased, multi-year funding commitments for the specialist and accredited services who every day provide the kind of care, time, compassion and support which every day changes and saves lives.
Rape Crisis Centres are not simply ‘counselling’ or ‘therapy’ centres, though they offer this as part of what they do. They’re beacons of hope in what is too often a sea of despair for survivors and their families. They’re specialist educators, advocates, campaigners and activists. They’re community-based recovery and outreach centres, changing the social attitudes and societal conditions which allow rape to go unpunished and unacknowledged. They’re important. The survivors they support are important. Three have closed in the last 12 months and more will be forced to do the same in the absence of such a commitment.
Keeping these incredible centres open and enabling them to meet the needs of survivors is only the start of what is needed if we are to restore hope and possibility, however. We also urgently need to see radical reform of our justice system, so that survivors are treated with dignity and the process can, as a result, be meaningful. Our most recent #LivinginLimbo report sets out just some of the changes we believe the government must make, starting with an end to crown court backlogs and delays to rape trials which undermine the justice system itself, and subject survivors to the same trauma and torment that their abusers do.
Survivors of rape and sexual abuse - adults and children alike - describe Rape Crisis Centres and the support they provide as crucial to their recovery. I’ve seen that firsthand - when I’ve met with them, when I’ve visited centres, and when I read their words in our case studies and reports. But they can’t always access it because the very support they say makes a difference - specialist, therapeutic support from people who believe them, support them and empower them - is the very thing that is most under valued in commissioning processes, and therefore most under threat.
We want specialist therapeutic support to be available to everyone who needs it before, during and after criminal proceedings, but also irrespective of it. The conclusion of criminal proceedings is only one part of the recovery process for a small proportion of survivors, but all survivors come to us seeking ways to rebuild their lives and find hope and confidence again, or for the first time, in its aftermath.
My hope is that the upcoming strategy and associated funding commitments will ensure that no survivor of rape or sexual abuse is turned away or forced to wait for this once they start that journey, and that the services supporting them will be provided with the necessary stability to be part of a truly whole societal response to sexual violence. That’s one I know I could have confidence and hope in.