Keystone
Back to the sender: the health and social commission of the canton has reservations about the new cantonal victim support strategy and wants to send it back to the government council for corrections. The strategy raises more questions than it answers.
The Commission would like to see improvements in data protection, in the decentralized advice centers and in the shelters for girls and young women, as it writes in a statement on Thursday.
In general, the strategy lacks a holistic perspective and many questions about concrete implementation and the desired cost neutrality remain unanswered.
Rare places in women’s shelters
Criticism of the victim support strategy of the directorate of SVP government councilor Pierre Alain Schnegg was already voiced in advance. Institutions active in victim support, such as women’s shelters, are concerned about the desired cost neutrality.
Despite the increasing demand for victim support services, the canton does not want to make more funds available. In autumn 2022, various institutions criticized that he was not taking his responsibility to protect those affected by violence seriously.
Places in the Bern women’s shelters are rare and those affected often have to be accommodated elsewhere. In 2022, institutions sounded the alarm about this.
Suffering women also affected
With the new victim support strategy, the canton wants, among other things, to rein in perpetrators with a migration background. For example, social assistance benefits should be reduced or canceled.
“When it comes to victim support, there needs to be a balance between perpetrators and prevention,” quoted Gundekar Giebel, the spokesman for the canton’s health, social and integration departments, in an article published by the Berner Tamediablatt last December.
Of course it is important to work with both victims and perpetrators, Marlies Haller, managing director of the foundation against violence against women and children, replied in the article. The work with perpetrators of violence should not be financed from the victim support budget.
In addition, it is a task for society as a whole, since domestic violence occurs in all social classes. In the context of migration, it is only more visible because resources are scarce and the social safety nets are less tightly knit.
And a majority in the Grand Council Commission also rejects sanctions in the area of asylum and social assistance. She fears that women who have been affected by violence and who are already in difficult economic situations would also be affected by cutbacks or the discontinuation of benefits from their partners.
“This could further increase the inhibition threshold for claiming victim support,” writes the commission.
The Grand Council is expected to debate the victim support strategy in the spring session.
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