Debate contribution: Strategic Framework to End Violence against Women and Girls: Implementation

Debate contribution by Ms Sinéad McLaughlin on 26 February 2024.

MLA

Ms Sinéad McLaughlin

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

26 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Strategic Framework to End Violence against Women and Girls: Implementation

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4230618

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We have all been here before. Violence against women and girls is a crime, and it has become endemic in our society, in our homes and on our streets. The violence has been fuelled by the toxic legacy of our past and the deeply misogynistic culture in our society. The violence has gone unaddressed by government here, whether through sheer dysfunction, the inability to agree or the stop-start nature of our politics.

I welcome the opportunity to once again be here, debating the issue, yet I do not think that anyone in the Chamber disagrees with implementing the strategy. We are here, in essence, to put our agreement on the record. That is no bad thing, and I applaud the sponsors for tabling the motion and demonstrating the consensus that exists in the Chamber, yet this is too important an issue for us to debate in the Chamber and satisfy ourselves that we have moved the needle. Today, I want to discuss a number of issues that the Assembly must address. The first is funding; we have heard it around the Chamber this afternoon. As we stand here, there is still uncertainty about the funding for the strategy to end violence against women and girls. The strategy has been painstakingly crafted, and I pay tribute to the team that did that. I commend the work of Claire Archibald and those whom she has worked with. The strategy has the voices of women right at the centre of its creation. I know that, at the conclusion of the process, we can hope for a financial package to accompany its implementation and the immediate action plan, but the Assembly must state unequivocally that a strategy without funding to go with it is not worth the paper that it is printed on. The women who are affected by it deserve so much more than that. We know what we need to do in order to hold perpetrators to account and ensure that survivors have the support that they need, but, as the UN Women executive director said:

"We must do what we always do when we recognize the gravity of an issue: allocate serious resources ... To unlock financing across different sectors, to track budget allocations, to do more gender-responsive budgeting, and to resource the crucial efforts of women's rights organizations who are at the front line of response and are crucial partners for policy change."

Of course, the issue goes much wider than simply funding. For me, it is about culture, our society and the value that we attach to women's lives. That culture is writ large by newspaper headlines about femicide. It is right that our reaction to each and every one of those murdered women is profound devastation and that we say each time that they deserved to live and that their murder is unforgivable. The same culture that drives our most extreme violence happens around us each and every day in passing comments and the quiet acceptance of misogyny and sexism. It starts with phrases in schools like, "Boys will be boys" or jokes in workplaces, but we know that those examples are part of a pyramid of escalating violence. That culture can be addressed only from the earliest possible days in children's lives.

Absolutely. I thank the Member for her intervention. Education is at the heart of the matter, as is RSE, and consent and learning about consent are at the very heart of the strategy. I know the frustration that the public can have with strategies. When we are faced with urgent crises and devastating need, demands for a strategy can sometimes sound like kicking an issue into the long grass. I understand that instinct, even though I have a view that a strategy is essential. We need to do much more in the immediate term, starting with supporting the services that exist and the organisations that are doing incredible work. Those are organisations like Women's Aid and others, which have lost core grant funding in the past year. That does not mean an inadequate level of funding; it is a cut, plain and simple. I find it hard to quantify the scale of the impact of the work of Women's Aid, and I do not think that anyone here actually can. Through its practical front-line impact, the small investment through the core grant to Women's Aid paid off many times over. When we are debating the very strategy to end violence against women and girls, it is absurd that we would rip money away from organisations like that. It is absurd that we passed a Budget Bill last week that underpinned the cut to organisations like that. Will any Minister now guarantee that funding?

Otherwise, as was said earlier, I worry that the commitment to the strategy and the consensus that we have all shown today will be a commitment in words only.

817 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:38 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification