Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): We are joined by Aisling Twomey, policy and advocacy officer of the Rainbow Project; Amanda McGurk, a domestic violence support worker from Cara-Friend; and Danielle Roberts, policy development officer for HERe NI. You are all very welcome to the meeting. Thank you for joining us. The session will be recorded by Hansard, and we will publish the account of it on our Committee web page. I hand over to you to give us a brief outline of the key issues, and then members will pick it up with some questions. Thank you.

Ms Aisling Twomey (Rainbow Project): Thank you very much, Chair. We will take it in the order of Danielle, Amanda and then me.

Ms Danielle Roberts (HERe NI): Thank you to the Committee for the invitation to speak about the Protection from Stalking Bill. HERe NI advocates for and supports lesbian and bisexual women and their families and aims to improve the lives of lesbian and bisexual women across Northern Ireland. We are the only women-focused organisation in the LGBTQ sector.

We jointly run a gendered violence project with Cara-Friend, and that is aimed at LGBTQ+ women and girls aged 12-plus who are at risk of domestic and sexual violence or abuse. My colleague Amanda is the gender violence worker, and she will speak about some of the experiences of the girls and women whom she has supported who have experienced stalking and harassment. In developing our written response, we worked closely with Women's Aid and the Women's Policy Group. Some of our service users participated in the Raise Your Voice survey, and the Women's Policy Group's written response draws on that.

Stalking can form part of a pattern of domestic abuse, harassment, hate crime, sexual violence or a mixture of those categories. As the Committee heard from Women's Aid, stalking can take place online as well as in physical spaces, including the home, workplace and social locations. Stalking is a serious offence in itself but often includes other crimes such as criminal damage and physical violence. There is also a correlation between stalking and domestic homicide. Protection from stalking is a human rights issue. Stalking can cause a victim to live in constant fear as well as interfere with their right to work, education and private and family life.

One issue that we want to highlight is that we do not actually know the level of stalking that takes place within LGBTQ+ relationships. We do not have disaggregated data at a local level, and we have no way of knowing what unreported experiences there are. From evidence elsewhere, which is included in our written response, we know that reports of stalking, harassment and violent assault in the LGBTQ+ community have increased dramatically in England and Wales in recent years, and that is in line with our professional experience here.

In several countries, including the UK, the US and Canada, studies have shown that bisexual women in particular are the most vulnerable to rape, sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking, and a 2010 to 2012 study in the US found that bisexual women experience stalking at higher levels than any other group. A more recent study, from 2019, found that disproportionately high levels of bisexual women experienced stalking or other crime carried out by an intimate partner over their lifetime. Sixty-one per cent of bisexual women reported being raped, assaulted or stalked by an intimate partner, compared with 44% of lesbian women and 35% of heterosexual women.

Amanda and Aisling will discuss some of the barriers to accessing support services, and, while there are barriers, there are also examples of best practice that can be drawn on. However, first, we need to get a fuller picture of the level of stalking offences happening in general, as well as in relation to particular groups, to ensure that services are adequately resourced.

We recommend that all section 75 groups should be monitored where stalking offences are perpetrated, with both the perpetrator and victim data being recorded. That should be inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity. We recommend that monitoring sexual orientation and gender identity should be made a standard procedure, as that removes the onus on the individual to come out in an environment where they are not sure they will be welcomed. Everyone has a sexual orientation and gender identity, and we need to stop othering those who are not heterosexual and/or cisgender, which means that their gender matches that assigned at birth.

We also recommend that policies and procedures are co-designed with representatives of section 75 groups, as specialists and experts, to ensure that there no oversights. For example, even when recorded, bisexual people are often mis-recorded based on the gender of their current partner. To date, there has been very little acknowledgement in policy or legislation that LGBTQ+ people have experienced stalking, so we particularly welcome the opportunity to give evidence today.

As any new legislation is rolled out, there should be mandatory training for judges, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS), police and other legal professionals on best practice, such as using gender-neutral pronouns, and sexual orientation awareness. We would also like to see LGBTQ+ domestic violence liaison police officers and specialist independent domestic violence advocates.

We welcome the Protection from Stalking Bill and the proposed stalking offence. However, we also recognise that it is only one element of fighting gender-based violence. For example, there are already many issues with current breaches of non-molestation orders in Northern Ireland, and people not being taken seriously by the police when they report that makes victims and survivors lose faith in the system, as Amanda will discuss. Those issues need to be addressed. HERe NI also advocates for the urgent implementation of a standardised relationships and sexuality education (RSE) curriculum across every school in Northern Ireland so that people can learn what a healthy relationship is and help them identify if they are at risk. Thank you for listening. I will now pass over to Amanda.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Thank you, Danielle.

Ms Amanda McGurk (Cara-Friend): Thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to talk about the Northern Ireland Protection from Stalking Bill. My name is Amanda McGurk, and I am the joint domestic violence support worker for two organisations in the LGBT sector: Cara-Friend and HERe NI.

Cara-Friend has supported the LGBTQ+ community since 1974 and works with 12- to 25-year-olds in a range of areas, including in the domestic violence project. As Danielle explained, HERe NI is an organisation that supports lesbian and bisexual women and their families. I am here today to help the voices of some of the women and girls that I work with in the LGBTQ+ community to be heard. I will give a real-life example of stalking that was experienced by an LGBTQ+ person, explain the barriers that LGBTQ+ people face to reporting stalking and explain the issues of invisibility and heteronormativity.

We welcome the new legislation. The current legislation is no longer fit for purpose. In recent years, the use of technology against victims has been much more apparent, and the current legislation does not go far enough to address that. An aspect of technology is that, as soon as you get the latest piece of equipment, it is out of date. In much the same way, as soon as new legislation comes into effect, perpetrators find a way to work around it. Legislation is outdated before it is even passed. We are concerned that there is not a better way of dealing with malicious communications, cyberbullying and stalking. My colleague, Aisling, will talk more about that later.

People often think of stalking as being carried out by a stranger who has an obsession with someone, or they think of that behaviour being caused by mental health issues. However, in the LGBTQ+ organisations for which I work, I see a correlation between stalking and domestic abuse, and I will give an example of that. A lot of women and girls that I engage with, who have experienced domestic abuse or sexual violence and abuse, describe what I can only label as stalking and harassment. When they describe those experiences, they do not label them as stalking or harassment; they label them as just being other things that happened to them. That shows that there is a lack of education and awareness within the LGBTQ+ community surrounding stalking. If we want to resolve that issue and encourage people to see stalking as an issue and to report it, then we have to have a robust campaign that highlights stopping stalking in the LGBTQ+ community as an issue.

As an example of that, I was working with a woman whose ex-partner had been abusive towards her. As part of her story, she told me that, after they had separated, her ex-partner started appearing everywhere she went. When she was at her sister's house, her ex turned up there. When she was at her holiday home, her ex turned up there. My client explained that she could not understand how her ex knew exactly where she was going to be and when. On hearing that, I asked the client whether they knew about the location services on their phone and about the map that shows up on Snapchat, which was also on their phone. I explained that those services can be disabled, but that they must be disabled on all phones in the household, including their children's phones. My client contacted me a couple of days later and said that she had worked out that her ex was able to follow her everywhere she went because they had found her using the map on her child's Snapchat. At no point did the client describe that as stalking; she just viewed it as another way that her ex was able to harass her. With changes in technology advancing — unlike my broadband, which is really slow — it is imperative that legislation is robust and flexible enough to adapt to ever-changing technology and to the technological advances that move at a high speed.

There is a lack of research into stalking within the LGBTQ+ community. I am sure that Danielle mentioned that earlier. There are no statistics for stalking as a stand-alone issue. It is only ever mentioned within instances of hate crime. However, in the five years between 2013-14 and 2017-18, the number of homophobic and transphobic hate crimes has doubled in England and Wales from 4,600 to 11,600. Those crimes include stalking and violent assault within the LGBTQ+ community. Specific data needs to be collected around stalking and abuse within the LGBTQ+ community. If data about those cases is not collected, that will give an impression that there are very low numbers of domestic abuse and harassment cases within same-sex relationships.

People from the LGBTQ+ community have to overcome specific barriers or perceived barriers. First, an LGBT person must disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity. That is otherwise known as coming out. In effect, they have to do that to make a report, and that alone can prevent an LGBT person reporting crime against them. Not everybody is confident enough to out themselves or to disclose their sexual orientation to people whom they do not know. That can be because of perceived homophobia, biphobia or transphobia, or a fear of the reaction that someone who is not from the LGBTQ+ community may have to the disclosure of someone's sexual orientation or gender identity. Many individuals have to think, "How will this person react? Will it affect my living circumstances, i.e. am I going to become homeless? What are the consequences of me disclosing my sexual orientation?". Many LGBTQ+ individuals report that they have had a negative reaction to their disclosure of sexual orientation or gender identity when accessing services.

On heteronormativity and making assumptions, the majority of campaigns that we see in the media are centred around heterosexual, white, cisgendered — those who identity with the gender that they were assigned at birth or, in other words, those who are the opposite of transgendered — people. They rarely show the diversity of our society. Identifying as a sexual orientation that deviates from heteronormativity may lead to violence and emotional abuse. However, if an LGBTQ+ person also identifies with another minority grouping, they may experience even more discrimination. Intersectionality refers to particular forms of intersecting oppressions such as intersections of race, gender or sexual orientation.

Intersectionality helps us to understand, for example, the overlapping of many identities such as ethnicity socio-economic status, sexual orientation or gender identity, to name a few. The intersectionality of LGBTQ+ people is often minimised or not taken into account. Only rarely are there indicators of difference between LGBTQ+ people. There is always a danger that those who are placed in one category will be seen as a homogenous group and that diversity and differences within the group will be lost.

If you are a woman, it is often assumed that your partner will be a man. That is heteronormativity, where heterosexuality is classed as the default. Heteronormative campaigns often make the LGBTQ+ community invisible. For people from the LGBTQ+ community, there is an assumption that stalking only happens to heterosexual people and that it does not exist in same-sex relationships.

Public awareness campaigns often focus on a female victim and male perpetrator in a heterosexual relationship. That is a barrier for LGBTQ+ people, not only to reporting all forms of abuse but to recognising what they are experiencing as abuse. Visibility is extremely important for minority communities. When minority communities are included in public campaigns, there is a shift in social consciousness towards being more inclusive.

As part of the collective Women's Policy Group response to the call for evidence and in order to ensure that the voices of victims were heard, the organisations sent to women who had experienced stalking a SurveyMonkey survey, which opened on 30 March 2021 and closed on 13 April 2021. Of the people who responded, 18% identified as LGBTQ+. Many of those people had never seen themselves reflected in media campaigns, and, therefore, they might not have recognised that they were experiencing stalking until someone named it as such.

Effective and inclusive public awareness campaigns are so important. Often, public awareness campaigns focus on a woman and a man in a heterosexual relationship. Public awareness campaigns, legislation and awareness training for statutory, community and voluntary sector organisations must recognise that there are multiple circumstances and that domestic abuse occurs beyond a heterosexual relationship. We very much welcome the new legislation but the legislation alone is not sufficient. Legislative advances should be supported with mandatory training on best practice, as Danielle said.

Public awareness campaigns that use gender-neutral pronouns and gender-neutral language should be used in relation to the victim and perpetrator. The use of gender pronouns in describing the victim and perpetrator risks alienating the LGBTQ+ community, leading to an assumption that they are not included in services. Using terms such as "perpetrator" and "victim" avoids that. In addition, specifically identifying LGBTQ+ in public awareness campaigns means that LGBTQ+ people will be more likely to engage with services.

Adequate funding should be made available for full implementation of any legislative advances. That funding should also be made available for the LGBTQ+ sector organisations, which have the expertise to carry out that work.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to me. I will now hand over to Aisling.

Ms Twomey: I welcome the opportunity to provide some comment and information with regard to the Protection from Stalking Bill.

In the course of our work, we support LGBT people who have experience of harassment or stalking. That can often be in conjunction with other elements of crime, such as domestic abuse, sexual violence or hate crime. Amanda and Danielle pointed out some of the key barriers for LGBT people when it comes to accessing support. However, I would like to raise a few additional points.

First, I want to thank the Minister, her Department and the Committee for taking the time to welcome us to present evidence from our community but also for making sure that victims are at the very heart of all the legislation that is going forward. I want to say a special thank you to the Committee Clerk and her staff for accepting my late submission.

We welcome the introduction of the offence of stalking, which addresses the coercive conduct and behaviour associated with stalking. Currently, our legislation is falling short of protecting people who are vulnerable to that type of criminal behaviour. The protection that we have under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 has been underused and is not being sufficiently used to reflect the seriousness of stalking.

As Amanda said, we do not really have a true reflection of what the experiences are for LGBT people in Northern Ireland. Over the last year, we have been working with the PSNI with regard to the domestic abuse legislation and training and awareness packaging. LGBT people have been invisible when it comes to policy and legislation, so we welcomed the gender-neutral element of the domestic abuse legislation, and we would like to see that reflected going forward. As Amanda pointed out, it is a barrier to people accessing support.

We welcome the introduction of stalking protection orders (SPOs), and the fact that the offence of stalking is not exhaustive and is inclusive. The victim should be the focus of all legislation. We would ask that a perception test is applied to the offence with regard to the thoughts and feelings of the victim who is experiencing the stalking in conjunction with the relationship, or lack thereof, between the stalker and the victim.

Just to give a Northern Ireland flavour to the serious issue of the under-reporting of hate crime, the Rainbow Project, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Department of Justice work with the Regional Advocacy Service for Victims of Hate Crime to tackle the under-reporting of hate crime. Our research shows that about 64% of crime goes unreported in Northern Ireland. However, over the last year, and given the difficulties that we have had around COVID, we have seen a 30% increase in homophobic hate crime being reported to the police and a 28% increase in transphobic hate crime.

A report by the PSNI, covering April to June last year, found that about 130 incidents had more than one hate motivation attached. Harassment was listed, and it was predominantly malicious communications targeted at gay, bi or trans men. So, stalking and harassing behaviour are key issues for our community.

As Danielle has pointed out, bisexual people are more likely to experience crime, but LGBT people across the UK have been shown to be more likely to be a victim of crime and show a higher anxiety of experiencing crime. Our own research has shown that up to 70% of people will change their behaviour for fear of being a victim of crime.

Whilst women are statistically more likely to be stalked, it is also a fact that men are victims of stalking. It is important to note that men specifically can struggle to be recognised as victims under gendered laws. Studies have shown that, sometimes, when the perpetrator was male and the victim was female, their allegations were treated more seriously. Most responses in regard to stalking that we have had with clients advise them about them obtaining non-molestation orders or civil injunctions, however we have found in some cases that breaches of these orders are not being dealt with appropriately. So, many of our victims are left feeling that they are not protected from stalkers or from harassment. There has been research that shows that over 60% of restraining or non-molestation orders are violated by the perpetrator, so, as part of the legislation, we would like to see swift and firm action on any breaches of SPOs.

We welcome the inclusion of cyberstalking in the scope of the legislation. This has been a concern for us over the past year, and the legislation really needs to have flexibility to adapt to the ever-changing technological world that we live in. Whilst online communication is currently covered under the Malicious Communications Act, it is not being effected to its full use, and it does not cover the range of tools or social-media aspects that people are using to abuse people. Digital harassment and abuse has become a big, big issue. When we look at PSNI statistics that were released in February of this year, we see that there has been an increase in cybercrime of 135% on the year before that. That is a really significant increase, and a high proportion of those are either threats to kill or harassment.

Again, the stats are more towards women, but men do feature in that. Over the past year, we in the Rainbow Project have seen a number of men being targeted through apps such as Grindr and through social media. Their abuser is able to set up many, many anonymous profiles to continue that abuse. People have not been able to block them on those systems because they are constantly recreating another profile. We need to see better involvement with social media providers and with internet providers to identify the IP addresses connected to those offenders so that the police are able to get further information to establish the identity of the people who are continuing to perpetrate that level of abuse.

We are also seeing an increase in image-based abuse. The victims who I have worked with have expressed symptoms around depression, anxiety and, in some cases, suicidal tendencies and ideation. Internet users who identify as LGBTQ are more likely to experience threats or non-consensual imaging being shared, but, again, the main body of work that looks at image-based abuse is solely focused on cis women. That is another area where LGBT experiences are not truly being reflected.

We are seeing people who are living with HIV being targeted through social media and dating apps, where people who have come out publicly to speak about their status are being harassed, again, through anonymous social media accounts that can be closed down and set up under a new name, continuing that abuse. The police have a very difficult task in trying to identify the perpetrators and trying to stop that.

One thing that I also want to point out, and it was brought up previously in today's evidence, is the lack of recognition in the legislation of intermediaries. I bring this up because I worked with a case this year where abuse had been going on with a child. The child was over 18 and was living out of the home but had been in an abusive, transphobic house environment. That young person had left and got accommodation elsewhere, but the mother, who was the abuser in that situation, was trying to maintain contact under the disguise of well-being welfare checks. She then got other family members to do the same. Again, it was about her continuing that course of conduct and abuse towards the person. Even though that person was an adult, who had been living independently and had clearly demonstrated that they did not wish to have contact with the mother or anybody who was associated with the family, the police did not recognise those issues at that time. They were not recognised as incidents of harassment, because it seemed as though it was just another family member trying to seek them out with regard to welfare under the COVID regulations, but it was actually just to continue the abuse.

As Amanda pointed out, it is clear that many barriers exist for LGBTQI people. We are not reflected in legislation or awareness campaigns. For many men who experience stalking and harassment, when they report it, oftentimes, their experiences are minimised or not taken seriously. We really need to tackle that. That can be done only by greater awareness training and investment in research for the LGBT community, and, as Danielle said, working in conjunction with LGBT organisations to co-design any future work.

We really need to challenge the myths and stereotypes that are out there with regard to victims. Often, male victims deal with negative gender stereotypes with regard to masculinity. For those who are from the LGBT community, further stereotypes are attached to them, which make it difficult for them to even come forward to report abuse, stalking or harassment.

In closing, I want to say, like Amanda, that, whilst we stress that legislation alone will not improve the experience for LGBT people, changes can happen if it is done with research, investment and awareness campaigns in conjunction with specialist LGBT services, and all victims must be offered that specialist support from an LGBT organisation as an advocate and be provided special measures when it comes to moving through the criminal justice system.

I will leave it there. I am happy to take any questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Thank you. All three of you have provided a comprehensive briefing. I will just pick up on one issue that Aisling mentioned, which was growing social media harassment. What more can be done on that to strengthen protections for people so that they are not faced with that level of harassment?

Ms Twomey: The question of what can be done is broad. Greater work needs to be done and greater responsibility taken by social media providers, organisations that host dating websites, Facebook and Twitter. They have a responsibility to tackle hate. Ofcom has shown that nearly 50% of people have viewed hateful content online or experienced harassment through it. Whilst some social media organisations pay a bit of lip service to tackling it, we actually need to see follow-through from them. There have been discussions about hate crime and Ofcom in the UK holding those companies to account for not taking action on it. There is a way to tackle repeat offenders. Everybody has an identifiable IP address. I will have used one as I called into the meeting. That could be secured, regulated and blocked to prevent someone from accessing the internet in order to continue that abuse. We have seen it with non-molestation orders and things like that. Therefore, there is an opportunity to bring that in under the legislation.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Thank you. That is helpful. Let me bring in some members at this stage. I will start with Linda Dillon, and then go to Rachel.

Ms Dillon: Thank you to Amanda, Aisling and Danielle. I appreciate your contributions. I have a quick question. You outlined the concerns about the lack of reporting, and that is largely due to, in many cases, a fear of the professionals being homophobic. The first barrier for an individual is having to disclose face to face their sexual orientation and gender identity. How can that be overcome in a sensitive and appropriate manner? As you outlined, data collection is so important. To be fair, on stalking, we are not collecting data on anybody because, unfortunately, we do not yet have the offence. Obviously, going forward, we will have that, so how will we collect the data that specifically identifies the challenges for people from the LGBTQI community if there is a challenge in immediately forcing them to disclose that information? I am trying to get my head round that. I know that the PSNI has raised before the issue of how its officers can identify people from different religious or political backgrounds without specifically asking them, given that asking them can create its own problems. Is there a way in which that can be done in a sensitive manner?

Ms McGurk: I will start off on that one, if nobody else minds. The easiest way of doing it is to ask the question. We ask so many questions that are really personal — your name, your address, your telephone number, your date of birth — and we have no problem with asking them. If somebody says, "Name, address, telephone number, sexual orientation, gender identity", in the same way, rather than stuttering and being awkward about it, it overcomes that. If you are asking somebody from the LGBTQ+ community those questions, that immediately says, "We are inclusive. We are affirming". There are subtle ways of doing it, such as the person having an LGBT rainbow flag or trans flag sticker on their notebook or wearing a rainbow lanyard or anything like that that says, "I'm LGBT affirming". That instantaneously makes somebody feel a lot more at ease about coming out and the reaction that they will get. It does not have to be a massive thing. It is about putting in place very subtle things such as somebody having a sticker or a lanyard that says that you are affirming. If somebody is wearing a rainbow lanyard or has a trans sticker on their book, I automatically assume that they are at least an ally. Therefore, coming out to them about my sexual orientation or gender identity is not as scary as it would be if they did not have that. There are those verbal and non-verbal cues.

Ms Twomey: Training is essential for someone to overcome that fear when engaging with somebody from the LGBT community. When I do training with police officers, I often see that there is a fear of asking the question and a fear of offending. It is better to ask than to assume. Do not make assumptions. Again, it is about encouraging people to have that confidence. Like Amanda said, it should roll off the tongue in the same way that asking someone their name, date of birth, address and postcode does. There is fear out there, and that is why training is so essential, because it gives people, especially those in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, that awareness when they are dealing with somebody who is very vulnerable. You could be the first police officer to whom they have ever spoken, and you may be the last, so that first impression is really important. Like Amanda said, sometimes it does need to be verbal; it could be a simple lanyard, a pin or a pen. The fact that you are consciously asking that question can break down a whole stack of barriers that may exist.

Ms Dillon: OK. I appreciate that. That was my main point. You are right about the training: it gives people confidence. You talked about giving the individual who is potentially the victim of a crime confidence. The police officers need to have the confidence to know that they are saying the right thing and will not cause offence. To be perfectly honest, that is really important for all of us. You are right that it is important for those officers to know that they are saying the right thing and that we give them that confidence.

Ms Twomey: That is why we have advocated quite heavily for the PSNI to report all section 75 incidents and to engage with us directly about that training. We are also working with it on the domestic abuse legislation, looking specifically at LGBT issues. We look at those barriers, and we talk about pronouns to try to tackle some of the assumptions about stereotypes for domestic abuse.

Ms Dillon: I appreciate that. Your presentations were fulsome. You are generally supportive of the Bill in your submissions. I really appreciate that.

Before you move on to the next person, Chair, may I suggest that we write to the Policing Board? I know that, when I was on it, one of the ongoing issues was the recording of section 75 groups. Can the Committee ask for an update on that, so that we look at it in relation to this legislation, specifically, and in relation to domestic abuse and other pieces of legislation that come before us?

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Yes. We will take a note of that, Linda.

Ms Dillon: Thank you.

Miss Woods: Thank you for your presentations and for your work to support LGBTQ people and their families in Northern Ireland. I appreciate your submissions and your discussion today about the legislation and about being adaptable in guidance and so on. You discussed the use of technology. I have friends who have been through very similar issues in which they have been stalked via technology by an ex-partner using apps and location services, so I know what you are talking about in relation to your clients' experience. It is chilling. It happens and it is not nice for anybody when they find out what has been going on.

I want to pick up, as Linda did, on your points about gathering data and statistics and on the publication of section 75 disaggregated data. You may remember that, during the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Bill, I tabled an amendment in relation to section 75 and information on A and B. That did not get support, and I appreciate the reasons for that.

I want to touch on your submissions, in which all three of you mentioned the need for statistics and the project that has already been worked on with the PSNI in relation to section 75 reporting. I would like more detail on that, if you can give it to me. If you cannot, that is not a problem. Mostly, I want to touch on your reflections on whether victims feel OK about being asked for sensitive information. Do you see any merit to the collection of that data and the intention of it being shown? I think that I know the answer to that. Do you feel that anybody who works on that project with the PSNI is being profiled? During consideration of the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Bill, that was given to us as a reason for not having section 75 data.

I appreciate that there are barriers and issues to overcome, but I think that we can overcome them. It is really important that we see who is reporting domestic abuse but that, in this case, we also collect data on stalking. If numbers are low, we might not have to publish it, for identifying reasons and GDPR and so on. More walls are being put up than are needed, and they could certainly come down. I would appreciate some information on that.

Ms Twomey: We do not have an update on the project about the PSNI's gathering of section 75 data. We know that that work is ongoing and that it is working with external partners. That is a big piece of work for it to look at internally. We have worked with it in relation to referrals for those who identify as LGBTQ, to make sure that those people are signposted to organisations, where it is appropriate to do so. Again, in the most serious cases or crisis situations, they are still going to those larger mainstream organisations, so it may be of a lower nature in terms of domestic abuse that the support is there.

Whilst we have not had an update, we are pleased that the work is continuing, and we are pleased to say that both Amanda and I were contacted by the police to work specifically on that new package of training for the domestic abuse legislation that is coming through. We are working in partnership with them to develop that, and it will be available for all police across the service to access. That is in progress as we speak. Amanda and I have been squirrelling away doing different Word documents, voicemails and things like that. We look forward to the publication of that. Certainly, the police are looking at the dashboard and making sure that people are asking those appropriate questions and that people are being signposted to appropriate supports. Whilst it will not be a quick fix, there are things ongoing at the moment.

Ms McGurk: Collecting the data is absolutely important. How can we provide services for people if we do not know how many people we are providing services for?

I will say it again: I am the only funded domestic and sexual violence worker for the LGBT sector across the region. Aisling works with me on top of her own job, but I am the only worker who is funded. It is a three-year funded project, and it runs out in December, so if my grant-making organisation does not fund the project again, we will lose the project and all the good work that has been done. Collecting data on LGBT people who experience domestic sexual violence, abuse and stalking all goes towards us being able to go back and say, "This is how many people are experiencing this. We do not have enough services in place to provide adequate support for those people". That is how we will give adequate support to victims in the LGBTQ+ community. If we do not get the research and the numbers, we cannot do that. In answer to your question, Rachel, we absolutely think that data collection is imperative.

Ms Roberts: I will add that data collection is important in identifying cold spots too. Are there people who are not reporting? Is there a zero return for particular groups? That is not just for LGBT people. Are there particular racial backgrounds that are not using the services? It is all section 75 matters. Obviously, our interest is sexual orientation and gender identity, but we need the legislation to work for everyone.

Miss Woods: Thank you for that. I suppose that it is about trying to overcome the concerns that a lot of people have. We talked earlier about the fear of asking questions. People do not want to offend anybody or to ask inappropriate questions and so on, but, as with that example earlier, will asking for someone's name, address, telephone number, date of birth, gender identity and sexual orientation not create a feeling of being profiled? You obviously cannot speak for every single person, but is that going to be something that would be a problem?

Ms McGurk: We do not see it as being a problem, Rachel. I think that people are more concerned about giving their age than their sexual orientation and gender identity. Obviously, I am not speaking for everybody. There will be people who have not ever disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity to anybody, and they may or may not disclose it when they are asked. We will always have a hidden number in that, and that is to be expected, but that is going to happen in every part of life, not just with crimes against you. I do not see its being a problem that for those who are out. There are different degrees of coming out and being out. For somebody like me who is completely out, I do not mind what people think about me or what they have to say about me, but there are other people who are out to friends or family but not out at work, for whom it may be more of a problem. As we have said, it could be put like any other question: "Date of birth, address, sexual orientation". The problem is more about the confidence and language of the person asking the question. All three organisations, Cara-Friend, HERe NI and the Rainbow Project, do sexual orientation training in which we go through language and appropriate use of language. If anybody would like to sign up for that, we would gladly take you on.

Miss Woods: Thank you very much for your answers.

Ms Dolan: Thanks for the presentation and submissions. Aisling, in your submission — I think that it was Aisling anyway — you raised a concern that the existing services and programmes that work with perpetrators are mostly directed towards men and there are no mixed-gender groups. Can you give examples or more detail of those services and programmes?

Ms Twomey: Yes. A lot of the focus is, quite rightly, on women being the victims and men being the perpetrators. We see services and packages that are designed specially for that and are quite narrow in their scope. However, you may have women who are lesbian being targeted by their partner. When they go to access services, those are more steered towards men, men's issues and men's anger. The services are very gender binary in the sense that they are a men-only kind of space. A female perpetrator would not really fit into that, and there may not be a service available for them. There is also an issue when people who are in a same-sex context contact some of the mainstream services. In a case that Amanda brought to my attention, the person talked about the perpetrator and the call handler constantly used male pronouns: "What's his name? What did he do to you?". When she said repeatedly, "No, I am lesbian. My partner is female", the call handler said, "Well, I do not know what to do with you", which is just so shocking.

That is why we are talking about working in conjunction with LGBT communities, coming to do training, coming to do awareness training and creating bespoke services for those who are experiencing that abuse. Having very specific, narrow, gender-binary programmes means that, often, people fall through the cracks. They do not see themselves reflected in the support and do not access the appropriate services, whether they are a victim or a perpetrator.

Ms Dolan: Aisling, I completely agree with you. Excuse my ignorance, but I was unaware of the programmes that exist for perpetrators. Chair, would we be able to write to the Department and ask if there are services or programmes out there working with perpetrators?

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Sure. We are taking a note of all the issues that people raise, which I will pick up on once we finish the session. We will add that to the list.

Ms Dolan: OK, thank you. Thanks for your response, Aisling.

Ms S Bradley: Thanks to Amanda, Aisling and Danielle. Like others, I am trying to square the circle between capturing the most data and the sensitivities of the questioning. Amanda, you referred very eloquently to the "hidden number", which is as succinct an answer as we could hope for. However, I still wonder if there is more that could be done. I can only imagine how stressful it is for a person who is presenting themselves as a victim of stalking. I try to put myself into the shoes of that person. I take your point, Amanda, about going down through the questions routinely and that, if there is a comfortableness in the person who is asking the question, that will hopefully create an environment in which there is also a comfortableness in the person who is answering it. At that moment, for good reason, however, that person may not be ready or may not want to come out. Somewhere in the system, perhaps at the end or in the outcome, when trust has been gained, there must be an exit piece so that somebody can, finally, register how they identify. Always to have a hidden number is not necessarily an acceptable place for us to land on that. I appreciate why that is, but it is food for thought.

What you said, Aisling, about the relationship piece between the victim and the perpetrator is also food for thought. It is important to understand that, from the victim's perspective, there is no relationship. The perpetrator, whoever that might be, perceives or believes or wishes that there is. That is regardless of how you identify on gender issues. We will have to be clear about that in the legislation. There is a danger that, if we do not understand that with clarity, it could fall under pieces of legislation other than that on stalking.

I thank you for your presentations. They have been very thorough. Thank you to the three of you.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): I thank you all for taking the time and spending it with the Committee. It is very much appreciated.