On March 6, the EU Fundamental Rights Agency presented their
EU-wide prevalence survey to an audience of an estimated 400 in Brussels, very
many of whom represented governments, NGOs, international organisations. I was
astonished how many speakers in this well-informed public declared themselves
“shocked” by the findings, since the new prevalence figures are not very
different from what national surveys have uncovered. Or were they hoping to
shock their governments into finally taking the problem seriously?
Just two weeks later, the European Institute
for Gender Equality invited some 50 experts from across the EU to discuss the
results of their study on the availability of administrative data on violence
against women. Unsurprisingly, since institutions and regulations differ quite
a lot among member states, not much of the data is comparable across countries,
and of course administrative files only capture violence that is reported to
the police, social services, or (much less often) the health care system. As
the FRA study showed, less than a third of all victimized women reported even
the most serious incident to the police or to some other agency or
organization. (A third talked to someone they know, a third had told no-one about
it.).
What do we need the data for?
The interesting thing would be data that told us what statutory agencies DO
about the cases they do hear of, for example, what percentage of cases recorded
by the police ever goes to court?
In its “victims rights“ Directive (October
2012), the EU – to my great satisfaction – finally defined a victim as someone
who has suffered harm irrespective of whether a perpetrator has been
identified, charged or convicted, or of whether she makes a criminal complaint.
Finally EU policy steps out of the narrow box in which the right to support and
protection depends on criminal proceedings.
But only one step. The Commission takes care to
ask member states to train the providers of specialist support services to encourage
and facilitate reporting to the police. Services, it seems, are expected to
teach victims to trust the police and the criminal justice system. Indeed, we
would all like to live in a world like that, and in many countries, the police
are making impressive efforts to be worthy of victims’ trust. But it is the
mandate of support services, would it even be ethical of them, to try and
convince reluctant women to denounce their husbands or partners to the police?
In how many states can a rape crisis center honestly assure women that they
have nothing to fear from being witness in a rape trial? About a year ago, when
a prominent rape case was being dragged through the German media, a former
national prosecutor declared, in a talk show, that if his daughter were raped,
he would strongly advise her not to
go to the police, because the defense would inevitably attack her credibility
and her character. Yes, when a woman has decided that she wants redress, wants
to see her tormenter prosecuted, support her by all means – but encourage?
Do more data make better policy?
But back to data. There seems to be a notion floating
around that the modern state ought to be informed about every case or incident
of abuse or hurt. Every victim of violence in close relationships, it is said,
ought to be “assessed” to decide if she needs special protection measures. (Why
is no-one talking about the perpetrator? Surely it is the person posing a
danger who needs to be assessed.). In the same Directive, member states are
asked to provide administrative data regularly, systematically, and in
comparable frameworks. It’s not easy to see what this has to do with victims’
rights.
Do more data make better policy? How, exactly,
does that work? Awareness-raising is likely to increase the proportion of
incidents that are reported, poor agency responses are likely to decrease that
proportion, but the numbers won’t tell us whether awareness has risen or
whether the agency responses have improved or deteriorated.
I’m finding the “hype” about data, and more
data questionable, especially since the data are all being collected from the
victims, and that is, we might remind ourselves, a very intrusive process. If my
handbag is stolen on the train, of course I go to the police (if only because I
need the file number to get all those plastic cards we live with replaced), and
their questions center on the perpetrator. I don’t have to answer questions
about whether I am feeling depressed or whether I am pregnant.
Seems to me that any institution that wishes to
collect data on people who have done nothing wrong, just had the bad luck to be
victimized, should be required to justify specifically why the data are needed.
A general claim that data collection is “an essential component of effective
policy-making” is too little. Numbers don’t make policy.
Carol Hagemann-White
grt
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