Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Delivery Plan
Croydon Council is introducing a delivery plan to address Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), with a specific focus on domestic abuse and sexual violence (DASV). We invite you to take part in our survey (see link below) to help us to understand what Croydon residents think about the council's domestic abuse service, the Family Justice Service (FJS) (formerly the Family Justice Centre). Additionally, we will ask questions on your experiences of other services within the partnership that support victims/survivors of DASV/VAWG including health, police and education. We would also like to find out your thoughts about the awareness of support options for victims and survivors of DASV/VAWG in the voluntary and charity sector in Croydon. Your feedback will help us to learn how to improve our services for DASV/VAWG services within the Safer Croydon Partnership and the community.
The government's definition of domestic abuse is "Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening, degrading, and violent behaviour, including sexual violence, in the majority of cases by a partner or ex-partner, but also by a family member or carer". This definition includes various forms of abuse such as psychological, physical, sexual, financial, emotional, violent, threatening, and coercive behaviour. It applies to individuals aged 16 or over who are, or have been personally connected, regardless of gender or sexuality.
The government also defines Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) as encompassing a wide range of abuses, including but not limited to harassment, stalking, rape, sexual assault, murder, so called ‘honour’-based abuse and coercive control. This definition is in line with the United Nations Declaration (1993) on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which defines VAWG as "Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life".
Please follow these links for definitions of types of abuse:
Sexual Violence, abuse and sexual exploitation
Female genital mutilation (FGM)
Crimes committed in the name of 'honour'-so-called 'honour based violence'
The council delivers it's own DASV/VAWG service called the FJS (formerly the FJC). To find out more information about this service, please click on the link below:
Please take part in our survey, if you have:
- Used DASV and VAWG services.
- Attempted to use DASV and VAWG services.
- Considered using DASV and VAWG services.
- Not used a DASV service but may consider yourself to be a victim of domestic abuse, sexual violence or VAWG.
- approached other statutory or non-statutory services for support on DASV/VAWG
- a friend or relative who has experienced DASV/VAWG but is not able to complete the survey due to safety reasons
You must also be aged 16 or over to respond to this survey and live in the London Borough of Croydon.
When does the survey need to be completed?
Please take part in our survey by clicking on the link below - we really want to hear from you. The survey closes at 11:59pm on Sunday 24 March.
Privacy statement:
Personal data submitted (including any equalities data) will be processed in accordance with the requirements of the UK General Data Protection Regulations. Data will only be used for the purposes of the consultation. Details will not be shared or published. By participating, you agree to your data being used in this way. For the purposes of this survey, we are asking for some equalities questions.
We will not keep your personal information for longer than is necessary. Where your information is held for a set period of time this will always be supported by a legal reason. These reasons are set out in our document retention policy. If you wish to see the retention schedule you can send your request to informationmanagement@croydon.gov.uk.
For further information on how we use, share and protect your personal data in compliance with our legal requirements under the GDPR 2018 and Data Protection Act 2018, please refer to the Council’s Corporate Privacy Notice:
Croydon Council's Privacy Statement: https://www.croydon.gov.uk/council-and-elections/privacy-and-open-data/privacy-notices/corporate-privacy-notice