Socialist answers on domestic violence

Though criminal justice is important to reducing and preventing domestic violence, so much more could be done with a social programme that treated the issue holistically. Many of the demands which could reduce domestic violence would benefit the entire class. They are absent from Labour’s plan to reduce violence against women and girls because the Labour government is putting the interests of bosses first.

Rates of domestic violence could be reduced greatly by making it much easier to leave abusive relationships. Victim-centred services like domestic violence advice lines, counselling and refuges need a massive injection of cash to meet demand.

Easily available and cheap housing, free transport and higher wages and benefits would make it far easier to leave abusive relationships and reduce pressure to return to them. Free childcare, a reduced working week with no loss of pay, and the ability to take paid leave for domestic circumstances, would do likewise.

A labour movement tackling sexism with education and solidarity will be far more effective at engendering better gender relations than a self-limiting, rules-based liberal approach. A rational and empathetic society could cut away at the roots of the problem.

Experience with other forms of violence puts people at risk for perpetrating and experiencing domestic violence. A society that values human life and encourages socialised, cooperative living would reduce violence through tackling roots of violent crime by reducing inequality and poverty and a harm-reduction approach to drug and alcohol. Family support for all parents would encourage better parenting and reduce stigma for seeking help when parents are struggling.

Better resourced and less authoritarian and competitive schooling would reduce bullying and other child violence. Schools and public health would teach how to build healthy and trusting relationships. People who were less stressed and less atomised, brought up by caregivers who were less stressed and less atomised, would be happier people with better emotional regulation.

Poverty, low income, financial stress, gender inequality, competitive school environments and unsafe workplaces have all been identified by government research to be risk factors for domestic violence. Bosses’ governments will not enact policies to deal with these risks, not because they want higher levels of domestic violence but because the cost to bosses is too high.

We need a government based on mass working-class mobilisation and accountable to a democratic labour movement committed to ending exploitation and oppression.