Agenda and minutes

1.1 Participants registered for the meeting.

2.1 The Chair welcomed Members and participants to the meeting.

3.1 Participants joined breakout rooms to discuss the draft Terms of Reference for an inquiry into women's safety and gender-based violence. The draft terms of reference for the inquiry are as follows:

- Women’s and girl’s experience and perception of violence and sexual harassment in public places in Wales, such as public transport, cities, schools, green spaces etc. The need/ scope for future legislation to increase the safety of women and girls in Wales, particularly in relation to public sexual harassment.

- Violence against women and girls in the home, including police handling/ understanding of their duty (at the request of the woman) to intervene in domestic violence situations, even when it occurs in the home.

- A focus on neglected groups and issues to better understand how violence differs for different parts of the population, specifically women with insecure immigration status, or whose immigration status is dependent on a spouse or employer.

- The scope, coverage and commissioning of services and interventions for survivors in Wales, and any impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on third sector organisations that provide shelters, legal aid and support services.

- The Welsh Government’s approach to primary prevention and whether enough effort is being made to stop violence before it occurs by working with key groups (such as men, adolescents of children who have witnessed abuse), and to change cultural and social norms that support gender-based violence.

- Whether Welsh Government budget allocations are adequate to fully implement the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 and implement the next phase of its national strategy for 2022-26, including consideration of whether there has been cost-effective resource investment to strengthen expertise in key sectors and to improve service delivery bottlenecks (i.e. in order for the Welsh Government to deliver on its policy commitments to ending violence against women and girls).

4.1 Each group reported back their key findings.

The Chair thanked the participants for their contributions and closed the meeting.