Agenda item
Task Group Report on Tackling Violence against Women and Girls in Brent
Members of the Health Partnership Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HPOVS) on a number of occasions, expressed an interest in forming a task group to tackle violence against women and girls in Brent; focusing on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Honour Based Violence (HBV) and Forced Marriages (FM).
The task group was agreed by HPOVS in March 2013 and has used this time to conduct an in-depth review into harmful practices. The task group report is attached as appendix A.
Minutes:
The Chair invited Councillor John, chair of the task group for tackling violence against women and girls in Brent, to present the report to committee.
Councillor John advised that the task group started its work in 2013 to look at issues such as female genital mutilation (FGM), honour based violence and forced marriages. Members heard that such inequalities existed across the World and these were cited in the report. The United Nations had identified FGM as being a global epidemic and the practice was widespread. FGM represented a violation of both children and women, however there had not been many measures to address the problem until recent publicity. It was estimated that there were around 14 million forced marriages each year Worldwide and this was also happening in the UK, as had been reported by the Evening Standard newspaper recently. As a result, the Government was setting up initiatives to address this issue.
Councillor John emphasised the need for the Children’s Safeguarding Board, the Health and Wellbeing Board, the Safer Brent Partnership and the Assistant Chief Executive’s Service to work together to prevent such practices from being carried out in the borough and of the need for each of these organisations to ensure proper data sharing between each of them and this was captured in the task group’s second recommendation. Councillor John referred to two examples of women who had been subject to forced marriages and had managed to escape to the UK where they now felt safe. She then advised the committee that it was the council’s duty as a corporate parent to safeguard babies, children and young women from harm. GP practices and schools should also play their role and every effort should made to eliminate these practices in the borough. Councillor John thanked all other members of the task group and Kisi Smith-Charlemagne (Scrutiny Officer, Assistant Chief Executive’s Service) for their participation in the task group and in producing the report. Councillor John then referred to the twelve recommendations in the task group report and asked for the committee to agree them.
During discussion, it was enquired what steps would be taken to move the recommendations forward and how would Brent CCG facilitate recommendation twelve.
In reply, Councillor John advised that following approval from the committee, the recommendations would then be presented to the Executive on 24 March. She added that recommendation two would be facilitated by the Assistant Chief Executive’s Service. Cathy Tyson (Head of Policy and Scrutiny, Assistant Chief Executive’s Service) added that it was important that a coordinated approach was taken and the Policy Team was in the process of outlining responsibilities and to monitor and coordinate action. Updates would also be provided to the committee and the Corporate Management Team. Jo Ohlson (Chief Operating Officer, Brent CCG) confirmed that Brent CCG would be commissioning services in respect of recommendation twelve and was keen to support the initiatives.
The Chair thanked the task group for their work and report and felt that the information it provided would be useful to share on a national level. The committee then formally agreed the recommendations in the task group report.
RESOLVED:-
that the recommendations in the task group report on tackling violence against women and girls in Brent be agreed.
Supporting documents:
- 2-HPOVS 18th Marc-coveringreporth, item 5. PDF 91 KB
- 2-Final Version Report Tackling Violence against Women Girls in Brent, item 5. PDF 300 KB
- 2-Copy of Appendix Table, item 5. PDF 13 KB
- 2-Appendix 1 - Questions - Professional Discussion Group - Meeting 1 FGM, item 5. PDF 177 KB
- 2-Appendix 2 - Questions - Professional Discussion Group - Meeting 2 Forced Marriage and Honour Based Violence, item 5. PDF 181 KB
- 2-Appendix 3 - Qustionnaire Member Training 2013, item 5. PDF 73 KB
- 2-Appendix 4 - Qustionnaire Annual Brent Governors Conference 2013, item 5. PDF 71 KB
- 2-Appendix 5 - A_Statistical_Study_to_Estimate_the_Prevalence_of_Female_Genital_Mutilation_in_England_and_Wales[1], item 5. PDF 219 KB
- 2-Appendix 6 - ASCENT Domestic Violence Calls, item 5. PDF 153 KB
- 2-Appendix 7 - BSOMpopulation, item 5. PDF 951 KB
- 2-Appendix 8 - IKWRO HBV FOI Report Postcode Lottery-04.02.2014-Final, item 5. PDF 1 MB
- 2-Appendix 9 - Brent Harmful Practice Case Studies, item 5. PDF 199 KB
- 2-Appendix 10 - FGM-In-Islington-A-Statistical-Study, item 5. PDF 166 KB
- 2-Appendix 11 - Stonebridge School Safeguarding Policy 2014, item 5. PDF 678 KB