Tackling violence against women and girls is ‘top priority’ for council leader

Haringey Council leader Peray Ahmet says tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the borough is top of her agenda.

Speaking to Haringey Community Press, Cllr Ahmet said she is identifying the preventative work currently happening in the borough, and is working alongside external partners, including the police, to fill any potential gaps.

Pivotal to ensuring a solid plan of outcomes and actions, she said, was “making sure that women and girls feel comfortable to approach the police” to report issues of violence, particularly, as the case of murdered 33-year-old, Sarah Everard (killed by Metropolitan Police officer, Wayne Couzens, in Clapham, in March) has most recently highlighted a culture of institutional misogyny within the police force.

Cllr Ahmet said: “This is absolutely top on my list of priorities, [because] I am a woman, and I’m a woman of colour, so for me, it’s absolutely top of my agenda.

“It’s very important we have a close relationship [with our police colleagues], but never losing that ability to be critical, and vice versa as well.”

Last month, Cllr Ahmet and the women from Haringey Council joined more than 250 women leaders, councillors and assembly members across London, calling on Met Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick to make VAWG a priority for policing in every London borough.

A letter sent to the commissioner called for urgent reforms to be introduced to policing, in order to ensure the protection of women and girls from male violence and “restore women’s faith in the police.”

The leaders are calling for ten actions, which include the police committing to investigating and progressing all cases including sex or gender-based violence, and domestic abuse.

Referencing the deaths of Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa, Nicole Smallman, and Bibaa Henry, who all died at the hands of violent men, the letter stated: “Violence against women and girls is not new – it is an ongoing and long-lasting scourge in our society and for far too long it has not received the priority it needs.”

In the year ending March 2020, an estimated 1.6 million women in England and Wales experienced domestic violence.

One-in-five women has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16.

Preventative measures in Haringey include the schools programme ‘Protect our Women’, a project delivered to girls and young women aged 13–21, which focuses on ending VAWG by encouraging voices to speak out against violence by developing campaigning and leadership skills.

Cllr Ahmet says there also has to be campaigning that puts the focus on the perpetrator.

She said: “One thing we absolutely do not want to do is make it only a women’s issue – it’s not a women’s issue, it’s an issue for perpetrators as well, and we have to make that absolutely clear, so that we don’t get into victim blaming.

“It is about us keeping safe but more than that, it’s making sure that these perpetrators are not committing these crimes, and if they are, that there are serious repercussions for them; and that there is a zero-tolerance approach to it, and it’s not just dismissed as nothing.

“Ultimately, we want [Haringey] to be a place where women and girls feel safe, where the police will address any concerns that women have about safety, and will do so in a robust manner.”

Cllr Ahmet says that the Met Police needs to address its attitude towards tackling institutional misogyny within its ranks by taking an intersectional approach that considers factors such as culture and ethnicity, because “different women and girls will have different experiences of the police and of authority.”

This sentiment of a culture change within the police was echoed by Dame Vera Baird, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, who attended the Haringey vigil for Sabina Nessa, a 28-year-old teacher who was killed in South-East London in September.

Speaking to the BBC at the time, Dame Vera said the police need to do more to make the streets safe for women and girls.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Apparently the police have been giving out rape alarms to women and giving leaflets out saying how to stay safe in a public place. It is less, isn’t it, about giving women leaflets on keeping themselves safe in dangerous places, and more about the police making the streets safe for women?”

Some of the short-term plans to keep Haringey’s streets safe include potential plans for more lighting in parks, joint campaigning to spread awareness, holding more VAWG public forums, reviewing recent survey responses from local women, and taking informed strategic action via a multi-agency approach, which includes the community, statutory partners and agencies, as well as various external groups.

Cllr Ahmet said: “As a council we’ve got to accept that we can’t do things on our own, it is about working with partners which include the police but also includes women’s organisations and women themselves out there in the community.

“To be clear, there is a big onus on the police, in terms of what they do regarding these issues, but it’s not just about the police, and I think it’s always worth bearing that in mind.

“There is a big onus on all agencies including ourselves as a local authority. It is a multi-agency issue, [where we must look at] what more we can do.”