Calls for Domestic Leave Law in NI

A charity in Northern Ireland says bringing in a Domestic Leave Law, would help victims get out of abusive relationships.

Womens Aid NI made the calls, after New Zealand became the first Western country to introduce the law.

It gives employees time off to meet legal, medical, counselling, relocation and other administrative commitments to deal with or exit abusive or violent relationships.

The workplace entitlement would be available to all employees if they or an immediate family member experience family or domestic violence.

Rates of domestic abuse in Northern Ireland continue to increase here, with 30,000 incidents reported every year.

Louise Kennedy from Womens Aid says bringing the law here will help save lifes.

“Domestic abuse is sadly often a choice between staying with an abuser or poverty. The idea that someone may loss a job because they have to take time off to leave an abuser will often prevent women from leaving, so this gives them options”.

“Giving people 10 ten days leave will firstly help people recover from any physical injuries they may have received, they also need to be able to work out their options, like moving house or finding refugee. They’ll possibly need to put their child in a new school and find a new place to live. It’s a very stressful and difficult time for victims and this will help ease the additional pressure of money and the risk of losing their job”.

“The workplace will become a pro-active place for victim. Of course, eventually we would like to see it here, because if it exists in New Zealand, why can’t we?”.

Louise said the law is a great way for the workplace to help victims of domestic abuse and will give them another strand of support.

Domestic abuse has always been very much behind closed doors. This scheme will help bring it out into the open

She said: "It's very forward thinking. You can change a location where you work, you change change your email and you can get your personal details removed from the website where you work, and that all goes towards protecting a person from domestic abuse and stalking".

But Louise also says Northern Ireland has a long way to go before introducing laws like this.

We are the only part of the UK that doesn't have legislation like a corrosive control law or a rape crisis service funded by the government.

Most worrying of all, 245 women were turned away last year because there was no beds for them.

"We are very much behind the rest of the United Kingdom. We don't have funding for regional services for children. Children aren't just witnesses to domestic abuse they are victims as well. So I think while having something like a 10 day paid leave would be great, their are a lot of fundamental things we haven't addressed yet", Louise added.

"Abuse is going to continue to happen, victims will suffer, and it will cost more to the public purse with the amount of sick days and visits to the emergency department. If we can have a bit more funding and investment from the government then we can prevent that from happening and make it better.

"At the end of the day we don't just want victims to survive, we want them to thrive".

The statitcs around the levels of abuse here make for some difficult reading.

There were 29,913 domestic abuse incidents recorded in 2017/18, 2.6% higher than the 2016/17 figure of 29,166, and the highest level recorded since the data series began in 2004/05.

The 2017/18 figure is 42.7% higher than the level of 20,959 recorded in 2004/05.

And around five people are killed in Northern Ireland every year during incidents of domestic violence, according to PSNI figures.

Now the Department of Justice is seeking the views of the public on how they will introduce a tool to tackle domestic violence.

Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) were introduced in England and Wales under Section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crimes and Victims Act 2004.

They aim to review how local professionals and organisations came into contact with the victim, worked to safeguard the victim and seek out lessons to be learned where appropriate and highlight good practice where it is found.

The consultation is open until Friday September 28.

Full details can be found at: https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/consultations/domestic-homicide-review.

• domestic violence