‘Domestic abuse amongst London’s LGBT+ Community is a serious and growing issue.’
When London Assembly Member Nicholas Rogers was seen calling-out Sadiq Khan on the Mayor’s Office’s failure to respond to his request for a meeting on the issue of LGBT+ domestic violence earlier this month, the mayor offered his apologies, insisting that his actions ‘were not good enough’.
Though he referred to his offices failure to respond to his requests, the same might rightfully be said about the efforts of the Mayor’s Office to deal with rising rates of domestic violence among the capital’s LGBT+ community. The last few years have seen steady increases in rates of domestic violence among London’s LGBT+ community, a problem only compounded by the impacts of lockdown orders. Speaking to Chamber, Nick Rogers said that ‘since the mayor took over in 2016 it’s up by 30%… and there’s an 80% rate of under-reporting.’
There is certainly some work important being done in this area. Funded by the London Victim and Witness Service, Galop is providing specialist advice for LGBT+ people. The Independent Domestic Violence Advocate also provide specialist LGBT+ advice where needed. However, with no overarching Mayoral strategy it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this work is rather disjointed, with nothing bespoke tailored to the specific needs of the LGBT+ community. For instance, while London police do receive training in dealing with domestic violence scenarios, there is little in the way of training that deals with the specific dynamics of LGBT+ domestic violence.
It is very hard to deal with issues that can’t be seen. The under-reporting of domestic violence as well as the frequent failure of victims to recognise abusive behaviour when it happens renders the issue of LGBT+ domestic violence something of an iceberg. Getting a better sense of what lies beneath the water is essential for dealing with the problem, and this is top of the agenda for Nick Rogers who is currently compiling a report on the issue, complete with actionable recommendations to be published in the coming months.
‘At the moment it’s about identifying the scale of the issue… identifying what gaps there are in service provision’ said Nick of his report.
Moving towards a coherent and overarching strategy to deal with this issue, developing and strengthening this evidence base will be of the utmost importance. The publishing of Nick’s report in the Spring, as well as the LGBT+ Commission in Summer should hopefully provide some clarity to what is often a hazy issue for policymakers.
The full interview can be found on Chamber’s YouTube Channel here:
