Ministers review support for women and children victims of violence

The way women and children are supported after suffering violence is to be reviewed, Equalities Secretary Angela Constance confirmed yesterday.

In a speech to the National Violence Against Women Network conference in Glasgow, the minister said the move was to ensure public services were able to respond appropriately.

The Scottish Government's Equally Safe strategy to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls will also be updated and published later this month, to coincide with the United Nations' 16 Days of Activism campaign.

Ms Constance said in her speech: “It is vital for government and society, to take active steps to hold perpetrators to account and keep women and children safe from violence and abuse."

She continued: "Equally Safe is a powerful articulation of our approach – but I am absolutely determined that this vision is translated into real change for people on the ground and that we turn rhetoric into reality. This must be a collective endeavour, shared by all – so your active contribution and participation is vital to realising our shared ambitions. We will be guided by international best practice in this area – that is why we are working actively to ensure compliance with the Istanbul Convention, and why we will continue to press the UK Government to take steps towards ratifying this instrument, which has been described as the violence against women 'gold standard' policy.

"The Equally Safe strategy and delivery plan has a deliberate and decisive focus on building a society where gendered violence doesn’t happen in the first place and on addressing the root cause of gendered violence – gender inequality."

Click here to view the full speech.