Women

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape, including spousal rape. The maximum legal penalty for rape is life imprisonment. The law also provides for injunctive relief, personal protection orders, and protective exclusion orders (similar to restraining orders) for female victims of violence. The government enforced the law effectively in reported cases. Courts in some cases imposed the maximum punishment for rape. The government provided shelters, counseling, and other assistance for survivors of rape or violence. According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), from April 2017 to March 2019, police in England and Wales recorded 53,977 rapes; however, the proportion of offenses prosecuted fell to 1.7 percent, the lowest level since records began a decade ago. NGOs warned that police and Crown Prosecutorial Services have raised the bar for evidence needed, causing victims to drop out of the justice process.

The law criminalizes domestic violence. Those who abuse spouses, partners, or family members face tougher punishment than those who commit similar offenses in a nondomestic context.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law prohibits FGM/C. The law also requires health and social care professionals and teachers to report to police cases of FGM/C on girls less than 18 years of age. It is also illegal to take a British national or permanent resident abroad for FGM/C or to help someone trying to do this. The penalty is up to 14 years in prison. An FGM protection order, a civil measure that can be applied for through a family court, offers the means of protecting actual or potential victims from FGM/C under the civil law. Breach of an FGM protection order is a criminal offense carrying a sentence of up to five years in prison.

FGM/C is practiced in the country, particularly within some diaspora communities where FGM/C is prevalent. There were 298 FGM prevention orders issued to protect children perceived as at-risk of FGM/C. In March a court sentenced a Ugandan woman to 11 years for performing FGM/C on her three-year-old daughter in 2017. Her Ghanaian partner was acquitted of all charges. This was the first FGM/C conviction in the UK.

The government took nonjudicial steps to address FGM/C, including awareness-raising efforts, a hotline, and requiring medical professionals to report FGM/C observed on patients. The National Health Service reported 4,495 newly recorded cases between April 2017 and March 2018.

Sexual Harassment: The law criminalizes sexual harassment at places of work. Authorities used different laws to prosecute cases of harassment outside the workplace. In July the government launched a consultation on sexual harassment in the workplace “to gather evidence that the current laws on protecting people… are effective.” The consultations were a response to a campaign started in June by an alliance of NGOs including Action Aid, Amnesty International, and Time’s Up UK calling for employers to be found liable if they fail to protect their staff from sexual harassment at work.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: The law provides the same legal status and rights for women and men. Women were subject to some discrimination in employment.

Birth Registration: A child born in the UK receives the country’s citizenship at birth if one of the parents is a UK citizen or a legally settled resident. Children born in Northern Ireland may opt for UK, Irish, or dual citizenship. A child born in an overseas territory is a UK overseas territories citizen if at least one of the child’s parents has citizenship. All births must be registered within 42 days in the district where the baby was born; unregistered births were uncommon.

A Northern Ireland citizen undertook legal action against the UK Home Office for a claimed breach of rights in relation to citizenship and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. The citizen identified only as Irish and not as British but was told that under the law she is also a British citizen and legally registered as such despite her objection.

Child Abuse: There are laws preventing the abuse of children punishable up to a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment. Social service departments in each local authority in the country maintained confidential child protection registers containing details of children at risk of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse or neglect. The registers also included child protection plans for each child.

Early and Forced Marriage: The minimum legal age for marriage is 16. In England, Northern Ireland, and Wales, persons younger than 18 require the written consent of parents or guardians, and the underage person must present a birth certificate. The legal minimum age to enter into a marriage in Scotland is 16 and does not require parental consent.

Forcing someone to marry against his or her will is a criminal offense throughout the UK with a maximum prison sentence of seven years. Forcing a UK citizen into marriage anywhere in the world is a criminal offense in England and Wales. In 2018 the joint Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Home Office Forced Marriage Unit provided support in more than 1,764 cases of potential or confirmed forced marriage cases involving UK citizens, which represented a 47-percent increase from the previous year. Assistance included safety advice as well as “reluctant spouse cases” in which the UK government assisted forced marriage victims in preventing their unwanted spouse from moving to the UK. The government offers lifelong anonymity for victims of forced marriage to encourage more to come forward.

In Scotland 30 cases of forced marriage were reported in 2018, up from 18 in 2017. The Forced Marriage Unit stated that the increase in cases might have been due to an increased awareness of the criminality of forced marriage.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The penalties for sexual offenses against children and the commercial sexual exploitation of children range up to life imprisonment. Authorities enforced the law. The minimum age of consensual sex in the UK is 16. The law prohibits child pornography in all parts of the UK.

International Child Abductions: The UK including Bermuda is party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

The 2011 census recorded the Jewish population at 263,346. Some considered this an underestimate, and both the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and the British Board of Deputies suggested that the actual figure was approximately 300,000.

Almost two-thirds of the anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in Greater London and Greater Manchester–the two largest Jewish communities in the UK. The CST recorded 947 anti-Semitic incidents in Greater London in 2019, three fewer than the 950 incidents recorded in London in 2018. The CST recorded a fall of 11 percent in anti-Semitic incidents in Greater Manchester, from 251 incidents in 2018 to 223 incidents in 2019.

In February several MPs left the Labour Party, some of whom cited the alleged “institutionalized anti-Semitism” as a reason for their decision. In the same month, the Labour Party released figures showing that the party received 673 accusations of anti-Semitism committed by party members between April 2018 and January 2019.

In May the EHRC launched a formal probe to investigate whether the party has “unlawfully discriminated against harassed or victimized people because they are Jewish.” The investigation continued and was expected to be concluded before the year’s end. The Labour Party released a statement to say it is committed to fully cooperating with the investigation.

On July 10, the BBC’s highly regarded investigative program, Panorama, detailed allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and the party’s alleged mishandling of the problem. The program focused on the testimony of eight former members of the party’s Disputes Team staff and Jewish party activists. In the program former party staffers claimed the Leader’s Office interfered in the handling of anti-Semitism cases and said General Secretary Jennie Formby interfered in the party’s top disciplinary body, the National Constitutional Committee. Later in July a YouGov poll for The Times showed that 70 percent of Labour members viewed anti-Semitism as a “genuine” problem.

On November 25 in The Times newspaper, the chief rabbi of the country’s Orthodox Jewish community, Ephraim Mirvis, called the Labour Party’s claims to be confronting anti-Semitism “a mendacious fiction.” He called anti-Semitism “a new poison–sanctioned from the top” of the party. The Labour Party spokesperson denied the rabbi’s assertions, and, in a BBC interview on November 26, party leader Jeremy Corbyn defended the party’s record on addressing anti-Semitic remarks by its members and welcomed a dialogue with the chief rabbi.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities. The government effectively enforced the law.

The EHRC, contended persons with disabilities were still treated as “second-class citizens,” because progress in promoting improvements by governments, businesses, and the wider community had stalled.

Bermudian law protects the rights of persons with disabilities in the workplace. The law does not include any protection from discrimination on mental health grounds.

Government figures showed a steep rise in official complaints about its disability benefit assessment process, which was last reformed in 2013. In the year ending in February, the Personal Independent Payment was the subject of 9,320 complaints, versus 1,391 in 2016-17. NGOs stated the figures proved that the process was “completely inadequate” for persons with disabilities, adding that the claimant won 73 percent of cases appealed at tribunal.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey for 2017-18 reported that persons with disabilities were more likely to be victims of crime than persons without disabilities. The survey estimated 14.9 percent of persons with disabilities were victims of at least one crime, compared to 12.5 percent of the total respondents.

The EHRC provided legal advice and support to individuals, a hotline, and could conduct formal investigations, arrange conciliation, require persons or organizations to adopt action plans to ensure compliance with the law, and apply for injunctions to prevent acts of unlawful discrimination.

The law prohibits racial and ethnic discrimination, but Travellers, Roma, and persons of African, Afro-Caribbean, South Asian, and Middle Eastern origin at times reported mistreatment on racial or ethnic grounds.

Racially motivated crime remained the most commonly reported hate crime. On October 15, the Home Office reported 78,991 racial hate crimes in England and Wales in 2018/19, an increase of 11 percent over 2017/18.

In Scotland racial or other discriminatory motivation may be an “aggravating factor” in crimes. Race-based hate crime remained the most common form of hate crime in Scotland for 2018-19, accounting for 67 percent of all hate crimes.

In Northern Ireland there were 702 racially motived hate crimes between April 2018 and March 2019, an increase of 93 (13 percent) over the previous year. “Right to Rent” rules require all landlords in England to check the immigration documents of prospective tenants to verify they were not irregular or undocumented migrants. Landlords can be fined up to 3,000 pounds ($3,800) for noncompliance. In May the UK High Court ruled that the Right to Rent scheme is incompatible with human rights law and found that it discriminates against anyone without a British passport, including foreign nationals, who have a right to rent. Nevertheless, the rules remain in force.

“Right to Rent” rules require all landlords in England to check the immigration documents of prospective tenants to verify they were not irregular or undocumented migrants. Landlords can be fined up to 3,000 pounds ($3,800) for noncompliance. In May the UK High Court ruled that the Right to Rent scheme is incompatible with human rights law and found that it discriminates against anyone without a British passport, including foreign nationals, who have a right to rent. Nevertheless, the rules remain in force.

In Bermuda, where 54 percent of residents describe themselves as black, arrests of black persons constituted 84 percent of all arrest cases in 2017.

The law in England and Wales prohibits discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation. It encourages judges to impose a greater sentence in assault cases where the victim’s sexual orientation was a motive for the hostility, and many local police forces demonstrated an increasing awareness of the problem and trained officers to identify and moderate these attacks. On October 15, the Home Office reported an increase of 25 percent in hate crimes against sexual orientation compared with 2017-18.

Scottish law criminalizes behavior that is threatening, hateful, or otherwise offensive at a regulated soccer match. In Scotland sexual motivation may be an “aggravating factor” in crimes. Crime aggravated by sexual orientation was the second most common type of hate crime in Scotland. Hate crime against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons remained the same as in 2016-17, representing 16 percent of all reported hate crimes.

Hate speech, notably against Muslims, in some traditional media, particularly tabloid newspapers, continued to be a problem, with dissemination of biased or ill-founded information. On October 15, the Home Office reported 3,530 religious hate crimes against Muslims in England and Wales in 2018/19. Online hate speech also was a problem. A man posted racist anti-Islamic comments with Nazi terminology on Instagram in August.

Scottish law criminalizes behavior that is threatening, hateful, or otherwise offensive at a regulated soccer match, and penalizes any threat of serious violence and threats to incite religious hatred through the mail or the internet.

In Northern Ireland crimes related to faith or religion totaled 23 for the same period, marking a reduction of 17 (43 percent) over the previous year. Sectarian crimes increased by 46 (8 percent).