Two London based women’s groups, Latin American Women’s Aid and the London Black Women’s Project organised a joint project termed Women Against Homelessness and Abuse (WAHA), they have uncovered systematic failings by public authorities including Local Housing Authorities. The study reveals that Black and Minority Ethnic domestic abuse survivors get little or no help from their local authorities. By implication they are more likely to sleep rough and sometimes return to their abusers because of lack of options, a result of a broad systematic failings and discrimination by public authorities the project uncovered. This failings also extend to the police and local councils. According to the report released today, it “reveals a cycle of victimisation that goes beyond the violence perpetrated by their direct abusers”, this is not helped by “systematic and institutional failures and discrimination in the ways in which public authorities (the police and local housing authorities in particular) deal with their cases of violence”.
This is one more proof of the prejudice BAME people endure on a daily basis in a society that prides itself modern. The WAHA project is holding a stakeholders meeting on November 12 at the Trust for London to discuss recommendations in the report. A Domestic Abuse Bill has been sponsored by former Home Secretary and the Current Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid. The Bill is currently been considered for amendments and should receive a Royal Assent soon, once passed into Law, it will ensure that BAME survivors and their children get the support that they need to build their lives”.
