The Women’s Equality Party (WEP) has called for London Mayor Sadiq Khan to team up with the party to tackle the city’s domestic violence rates.
As Metropolitan Police release figures revealing an 8% rise in reported instances of domestic violence in London, WEP Leader Sophie Walker claimed that the party could bring support to City Hall.
WEP’s policies for London include better police enforcement of Domestic Violence Protection Notices/Orders (DVPO). The party is calling for perpetrators and not victims to be removed from their homes, and to ring-fenced funding for specialist support services for and led by women.
WEP also plans to work with local authorities to develop a system to support women fleeing domestic violence and sexual abuse. This would help women to find refuge through secure accommodation, with the aim of ring-fencing a proportion of London’s hosing investment to build refuges.
She said: “It is simply terrible these figures are rising and, what’s more, that less than a third of the incidents investigated by the Met Police resulted in further action.
“We have plans to tackle domestic violence both at the point at which it is reported and before this through preventative teaching in schools, rehabilitation of offenders, and specialist support for every survivor. I invite Sadiq Khan, who has styled himself as London’s first ‘feminist Mayor’, to take on these plans and to show himself to be a man of action as well as words.”
Walker added: “Understanding rising domestic violence rates is one thing, but the central issue for us is combatting them. I was the only London Mayoral candidate to set out a clear set of policies that prioritised this issue. The Women’s Equality Party is dedicated to ending violence against women in all its forms.”
