Susan Williams, a Conservative in the House of Lords and a junior minister in the Home Office, said in parliament on Wednesday that the government will “ ask the police to investigate all crimes of violence against the person, including stalking, ” on an experimental basis. identify and record. and harassment, as well as sexual crimes that victims believe are motivated by gender-based hostility. ”
The move does not require a change in the law as it is already possible to categorize these crimes as hate crimes. Williams said the reason the move is experimental is because the UK Law Commission had said the designation would not guarantee greater effectiveness in bringing justice to offenders.
Numerous prominent campaign groups in the UK have long been calling for misogyny to be classified as a hate crime. However, the murder of Sarah Everard has sparked a national conversation about the violence, harassment and intimidation women face.
The move to register misogyny as a hate crime was welcomed by activists. Citizens UK, an organization that brings communities in the UK together to campaign for social change across society, tweeted: “Great news! … Recording is such an essential step – goes beyond police. society and the state are now building on this and adopting the endemic #misogyny in our culture. ”But others were concerned that the move would not necessarily lead to more crimes being reported against women.
“We urgently need better data on the prevalence and extent of the sexual harassment women face on a daily basis. A new way of capturing crimes in themselves will not achieve that unless it is accompanied by funding for police training. and transportation workers, ”says Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.
“One of the causes of the data gap on sexual harassment is that women are not reporting – nor do they because they don’t know who to report to or what to report.”
UN Women UK released a report last week stating that more than 95% of all women did not report their experiences of sexual harassment, while 98% of women between the ages of 18 and 34 reported no incidents of sexual harassment.
There is no set date for the new measures to take effect, but Williams told parliament that the government will “soon begin and enforce consultations with the National Council of Chiefs of Police for experimental data collection. . autumn.”