Latest News

Children should learn about domestic violence, honour-based crimes and forced marriage as part of the school curriculum, MPs have said.

The all-party Home Affairs Select Committee has also criticised a "desperate shortage" of refuge spaces and emergency accommodation for victims of all kinds of violence in the home.

The report said: "Prevention and early intervention are vital in tackling domestic and so-called honour-based violence and forced marriage.

"Yet education on these issues in schools seems to be at best variable, and at worst non-existent."

The subject should be made a compulsory part of the sex and relationships curriculum, the report said.

The MPs suggested there should be a wide-ranging public education effort along the lines of the successful Think! road safety campaign.

Committee chairman Keith Vaz said: "We educate our young people about the dangers of drugs or road safety but not, it seems, about domestic and honour-based violence and forced marriage which, sadly, will affect a quarter of all women in their lifetime and many men too."

Domestic violence cost the UK £25.3bn in 2005/06 in terms of expenses incurred on public services, losses to the economy and costs to the victim.

The committee noted that, on average, two women are killed every week in the UK by their partner or former partner.

Children's Minister Kevin Brennan said: "Safeguarding children is a top priority for the Government, and we very much welcome the work of the Home Affairs Committee into domestic violence and forced marriage."

The NSPCC's Saleha Islam said: "The NSPCC is also calling for all schools to teach their pupils it is their basic human right not to be coerced into abusive relationships."

Related Tags :

• General
• Teaching and Learning
• Secondary Schools

Last Edited Date : June 13 2008 9:55 am