WOMEN could soon be safer in Guernsey. Businesses are being asked to join the fight against domestic abuse by setting out policies that detect and support victims in the workplace.
The inter-jurisdictional Raising the Standards conference, which drew on the theme, The Costs and Consequences to Business and Society, a Community and Corporate Response, highlighted the need for businesses to take responsibility for employees who might be abusers or who are being abused.
Chief probation officer and Raising the Standards island representative Anna Guilbert said it
was now up to firms to fulfil that role.
‘I’m not saying businesses haven’t done anything, but I think we were successful in highlighting what they could do to help women in the workplace,’ she said.
‘We are interested in the concept of businesses developing their own policies with regard to domestic abuse in identifying and supporting both victims and perpetrators,’ she said.
Mrs Guilbert said it was important that businesses learnt from and used victims’ experiences rather than ‘reinventing the wheel’.
‘All the information is there for businesses to take this next step,’ she said, adding that local agencies including domestic abuse forum Options and the Women’s Refuge were looking to set up a local branch of the UK’s Corporate Alliance Against Domestic Violence.
‘What we are looking to do is communicate with human resource representatives and have our own corporate alliance over here so we can form support groups.’
Skipton Guernsey managing director Alan Bougourd, one of the companies that sponsored the conference, said he believed victims of domestic violence could be helped in the workplace.
‘It was great to see the investment made by local businesses contribute to something which will have not only a positive effect on the island but participating jurisdictions,’ he said.
‘It will undoubtedly make a difference to the way businesses in the island regard domestic abuse and we believe it was an extremely worthwhile event,’ he said.
‘I strongly believe there are simple things that can be done and we will be looking to government to take the lead in terms of the best practice and share that with industry.
‘There wasn’t a general consensus in the hall on how best to deal with perpetrators, as any action taken will inevitably have an effect on the victim.
‘It’s important to make staff aware that businesses will appropriately support either a victim or a perpetrator,’ he said.
* For more information, visit www.raisingthestandardsinitiative.com
Article posted on 18th October, 2007 - 12.00am
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