The new three-year North Lanarkshire Violence Against Women Strategy and Action Plan 2022-25 approved by the council sets out how the partnership aims to reduce violence against women. 

The prevalence of domestic abuse remains high in North Lanarkshire despite strong partnership-working in this area over many years. Total referrals received by partner services (statutory and specialist services excluding Police Scotland) rose by 12% between 2019/20 and 2021/22 to 5339 with 91% of these referrals relating to women.

This comes as the latest figures for the council’s domestic abuse support service provided by Aura (since June 2021) show a significant increase of 204 per cent in the last year. Aura had provided essential support services to 151 people at the end of 2021 and cases have now risen to 460 active cases to date (22 December 2022). 

The strategy aims to promote the safety and wellbeing of women and their equality, aligning with the whole system approach to tackling domestic abuse. 

Councillor Ayeshah Khan, Equalities Champion, said, “It’s encouraging that more women are coming forward or are being referred by partner agencies to our domestic abuse support services over the last year but as these stark figures demonstrate, too many women are being physically or sexually assaulted, psychologically or verbally abused, or raped at the hands of men. 

“We need to continue to work with our partners to provide programmes that change behaviour and attitudes among young people, provide intervention and rehabilitation initiatives for offenders and importantly, provide safe spaces where women who are experiencing the traumatic impact of abuse, sexual assault and violence can receive essential support and care. That’s why this action plan has been put in place in agreement with the North Lanarkshire Violence Against Women Partnership.”

A range of steps have been outlined in the plan including the recent 16 Days of Action conference, which saw Dr Lesley Orr examine “what gender has to do with violence against women” and Lily Greenan provide an overview of the 30 years since Zero Tolerance campaign of 1992. Other actions include: 

• More engagement events will be developed such as the recent 16 Days of Action 2022 conference - Thirty Years of Zero Tolerance - Looking Back Moving Forward – which took place on Wednesday 30 November at Motherwell Concert Hall. Around 250 delegates from Police Scotland, NHS Lanarkshire, council education and social work services, ASSIST, Women’s Aid, Lanarkshire Rape Crisis, Barnardos and Aura came together to mark 30 years since the launch of the initial Zero Tolerance campaign and to consider the change in policy and legal framework around the violence against women agenda and what needs to be done going forward. 
• The council also recently approved its Housing Domestic Abuse Policy, which was developed in conjunction with the Violence Against Women (VAW) Partnership, and shaped by women with lived experience of domestic abuse. The policy includes housing-specific domestic abuse procedures, guidance and resources for staff support along with implementation arrangements which ensure access and awareness of these resources is readily available.
• A three-year development programme to extend the peer education Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) across North Lanarkshire schools from one to at least four MVP-trained staff in every mainstream secondary school. MVP gives young people the opportunity to explore and challenge the attitudes, beliefs and cultural norms which underpin domestic abuse, bullying and other forms of violence and seeks to create a culture within which abuse and violence are unacceptable. 
• Plans for a 12-month extension to the new partnership pilot formed this year between our housing service and Say Women was created, with a focus on addressing the needs of young women impacted by homelessness who have been victims of sexual abuse or violence. The Say Women service is now well embedded in North Lanarkshire, providing tenancy sustainment services to young women.
• Improved Multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARAC) process with additional funding to create co-ordinator posts who will work to support the MARAC which provides a co-ordinated response to high risk cases of domestic abuse and aims to prevent domestic homicide. 
• The continued implementation of behaviour change work with perpetrators of domestic abuse through both court mandated and non-mandated programmes such as UP2U. 

Councillor Khan added, “Particularly at this time of year, services do tend to see an increase in the number of incidents of domestic abuse. Please seek help if you need it by contacting the range of support services available.”

Despite the many advances being made, there are still persistent inequalities between men and women and work is ongoing to reduce that gap. This includes the council working towards silver accreditation for Equally Safe at Work and its action on gender equality including reviewing gender budgeting.

Anyone locally in North Lanarkshire who is experiencing domestic abuse or violence in any form, can seek support from Aura at aura.scot, or by telephoning 01698 757667 or by emailing aura@sacro.org.uk. 

The Scottish Domestic Abuse Helpline provides a confidential, non-judgmental 24-hour telephone service throughout Scotland, available on 0800 027 1234.