MINISTERS have today unveiled detailed plans to eradicate violence against women and girls in Jersey – marking a major step forward for gender equality in the Island.
Before the end of this year, significant changes are scheduled to be made to the Island’s Domestic Abuse Law to increase protection for victims, and funding has been secured for an end-to-end review of the criminal-justice system.
Home Affairs Minister Mary Le Hegarat has also pledged to bring forward specific offences in relation to cyber-flashing, stalking and cyber-stalking and explore the possibility of a new offence of sexual harassment in a public place before the end of 2025.
However, Kate Wright, the chair of the Violence Against Women and Girls Taskforce, which published its findings in November, said that “big questions” remained about long-term funding from government and co-operation from the courts.
Deputy Le Hegarat, who has led the response, said that the work was an “ongoing, rolling programme” and that “we need to keep making sure that our community feels safe and that we’re doing all that we can to assist that”.
The publication of the plan comes weeks after the Chief Minister accepted all 58 of the taskforce’s recommendations directed to the government.
Speaking to the JEP yesterday, Deputy Le Hegarat said it was “important” that the government had not “sat on [the report] for too long, otherwise people would have started to feel that maybe nothing was going to happen”.
She acknowledged the work of previous ministers and said that relevant departments had already started work on implementing the recommendations when the findings were first published.
Funding has already been secured for the work in 2024, she said, and would come from relevant budgets already allocated in this year’s Government Plan.
From then on, she said, funding would “need to be considered”.
“Some of the elements are business as usual. For example, the legislative changes have been incorporated in the work of the officers who work in Justice and Home Affairs,” she explained.
Addressing whether she was concerned about the courts consenting to a review, Deputy Le Hegarat said: “I am not concerned and I have had no concerns raised with me about their co-operation. We can all have a conversation and we can address the matters if there are any concerns raised.”
Deputy Le Hegarat said she would “hope and expect” that the courts would accept those recommendations and she would be “engaging with all parties individually to press for this”.
She continued: “Even though we have made significant inroads over years, we need to continue to make those inroads. It’s an ongoing, rolling programme. Now we have done this work, we don’t step back and [say] we’re done. We need to keep making sure that our community feels safe and that we’re doing all that we can to assist that.
“We need to keep reminding ourselves that these are things we should do, and reminding ourselves as a government to keep funding them.”
The government has committed to “transparent, timely and accurate” reporting of the actions of government and its partners in an annual progress report and action plan for each year going forwards.
