Mark Hendrick – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Women and Equalities
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2016-09-06.
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps the Government Equalities Office is taking to implement the actions identified for it in the Government’s Ending Violence against Women and Girls 2016-2020, published in March 2016; and when a member of staff from the Government Equalities Office last attended a Violence against Women and Girls Stakeholder Meeting chaired by the Home Office.
Caroline Dinenage
The Government is committed to delivering the Strategy published in March. The table below shows the progress made in delivering the actions allocated to the Government Equalities Office (GEO).
|
REF |
ACTION |
PROGRESS |
|
1 |
Develop new guidance in consultation with teachers for PHSE lessons specifically about gender equality (Apr 2016). |
GEO has been working with the PSHE Association to consult teachers on how best to deliver this commitment. |
|
2 |
Fund the Freedom Charity to expand the ‘Train the Trainers’ project…. (Apr 2016). |
GEO funded the Freedom Charity to expand their ‘Train the Trainers’ project to reach a greater number of communities and empower teachers to deal with the topic of forced marriage sensitively and confidently. This funding enabled an additional 3,620 students and 1,230 staff to learn about forced marriage with Freedom. |
|
5 |
Launch the second phase of the national prevention campaign to challenge abuse in teenage relationships and promote understanding of health relationships and consent – including among LGB&T teenagers (Feb 2016). |
GEO, in partnership with the Home Office, launched Disrespect Nobody, the second phase of the national prevention campaign to challenge abuse in teenage relationships. This included a TV advert, along with a dedicated website, blogs and guidance for teachers. |
|
8 |
Update Media Smart resources (with the Advertising Association) to help teachers and parents improve primary school children’s understanding of how gender is represented in the media and their resilience to negative content (Sep 2016). |
GEO commissioned the charity Media Smart to develop a new resource to help teachers and parents improve primary school children’s understanding of how gender is represented in the media and their resilience to negative content. The resource was published in August 2016 and will be disseminated to schools this term. |
|
10 |
Conduct or commission mapping of the evidence base and initiatives that engage men, boys and bystanders in VAWG prevention to identify how Government can build on these initiatives to further social change (Apr 2017). |
GEO is currently mapping the evidence base and initiatives that engage men, boys and bystanders in VAWG prevention, as well as meeting with stakeholders working in this area. |
|
28 |
Establish an official Government working group to map out current issues, prevalence, initiatives and barriers to addressing gendered online abuse to improve understanding and coordinate the response to online manifestations of VAWG (Dec 2016). |
In partnership with the Home Office, GEO has established an official Government working group to do this. This work is ongoing. |
|
30 |
Continue to ensure victims of revenge pornography have access to bespoke support and advice about their right to have the images removed from websites (review Apr 2017). |
GEO has funded the Revenge Porn Helpline for a further year to continue its important work supporting victims of revenge porn and working to have such images removed from websites. |
GEO officials attend the Home Office-chaired cross-government working group on VAWG, the last of which took place on 23 June 2016. In addition, GEO officials have attended a number of Home Office-led consultation meetings with VAWG stakeholders, the last of which was in February 2016. Such discussions run alongside inter-ministerial meetings, the most recent of which I attended in June.
