Women's Views on News |
| Counting the costs of childcare Posted: 18 Jan 2013 12:30 PM PST
On Thursday, 17 January, at 9.30 a.m., the Resolution Foundation brought together leading experts to debate why the cost of childcare in the UK is so high, and what needs to be done to make it more affordable. Women's Views on News will was live blogging from the debate. 13.59  09.30 @salmon16 and Karen Whiteley have arrived @resfoundation we are live blogging from their debate Counting the Cost of Childcare from 9.30 today #childcare 09.34 Justine Roberts, @Justine_Roberts, chief executive, Mumsnet; Anand Shukla, @anandshukla200, chief executive of the Daycare Trust; Baroness Sally Morgan, Chair, OFSTED; and Vidhya Alakeson, deputy chief executive, Resolution Foundation, @resfoundation, will shortly discuss the high cost of #childcare in the #UK and what can be done about it 09.34 The room is filling up and the debate is about to start #childcare @resfoundation 09.37 Gavin Kelly chief executive of @resfoundation welcomes everyone to the debate. Says #childcare is one of the biggest issues facing British households and very much a live political issue  |
| Posted: 18 Jan 2013 03:27 AM PST Not even one female political journalist was at the coalition government's mid-term review. At the government's recent ‘mid-term review’, there was a noticeable absence in the press conference room. Women. Women are already bearing a disproportionate burden of the government's spending cuts, so it was particularly notable that there were no female political journalists at an event discussing measuring government performance. Politics remains a largely male bastion, with women making up only 22 per cent of MPs and 22 per cent of peers. As for the media, 74 per cent of national news journalists are male. Given those statistics, it would have been no surprise to see only a few women among the roomful of journalists. What was a surprise was not to see any. 'Seen but not heard' is the title of research from Women in Journalism (WIJ) that looks at the ways women contribute to and are depicted in the British media. The findings show a division between the sexes very similar to the statistics above – 74 per cent of front-page bylines were male and 22 per cent were female. Broadcast journalism seems to be doing a better job than print media at attempting gender equality, with a number of senior female journalists on television and women in senior executive positions. Nan Sloane, director of the Centre for Women and Democracy (CFWD), told Women in Journalism that 'there is a clear democratic justice argument for having more women in politics. "You have 51 per cent of the population paying equal taxes, who are not equally represented when it comes to deciding how their money is spent."' With half the population under-represented in Westminster, unable to steer the news agenda in the newspapers and depicted visually in ways men rarely are – in various stages of undress – the absence of women at the mid-term review press conference was both evidence of and symptomatic of the need for change.  |
| UK legislation failing FGM victims Posted: 18 Jan 2013 02:52 AM PST
Deficiencies in the prosecution of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the UK were highlighted recently when the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Keir Starmer, unveiled plans to increase convictions under existing legislation. FGM includes intentionally altering or causing injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. FGM has been illegal in the UK since 1985 and legislation introduced in 2003 makes it illegal to take girls or women out of the UK to have any kind of FGM procedure. And Department of Health research conducted in 2007 estimated that over 20,000 girls under the age of fifteen in the UK were at serious risk of FGM resulting from religious beliefs and customs. But despite these figures and fears, and despite it having been an illegal practice in the UK for nearly 30 years, there has not been a single prosecution in this country for FGM. Ann Clywyd, the Labour MP responsible for the introduction of the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, said: "It's very nice to get a law through parliament, but if it isn't acted upon, it isn't worth the paper it's written on." The English legal system has been criticised by other jurisdictions for failing to provide adequate protection for victims of FGM. In the UK, legislation depends on health practitioners, education workers, social workers and ultimately victims of FGM reporting an offence to the police. When the majority of victims in the UK are under 11 years of age, and when current legislation requires them to stand as witness against their parents – should they be the perpetrator of the mutilation – it is easy to see why no convictions have occurred. Safeguarding children is not optional, but prosecution of FGM practice in the UK is currently dependent upon irrefutable evidence of suspected cases. To support the prosecution process, those most often in contact with children at risk of FGM – teachers, doctors – are responsible for reporting their suspicions to the police, but unfortunately, professionals fear getting involved in what is perceived traditional, cultural practice and a family matter. This fear provides a major obstacle. Only 50 of 500 hospitals and local education authorities were found to keep records of females found to have been victims of FGM. Without full statistics, the extent of the problem within the UK is difficult to determine and engage with. The government’s multi-agency practice guidelines say that professionals, such as health and education workers, those working directly with minors, should remain constantly alert to try and aid confidence in reporting such suspicions. While legislation is clear about the offence and the penalty – up to 14 years in custody for the perpetrator or anyone found guilty of aiding and abetting FGM – there is clearly a failure somewhere in the current system which is preventing the successful prosecution of those involved in the practice in the UK. In response to some recent publications by Hilary Burrage, FGM campaigner Linda Weil-Curiel, a French lawyer who has been involved in securing convictions against FGM perpetrators in France for a number of years, has noted some significant differences between the prosecution processes in France and the UK. "[The French] legal system is very different it seems, but somehow I am troubled by the excuse that 'evidence' is not easy to gather [in the UK]: in France the evidence is the mutilation itself, medically established. "The perpetrator is not easily identified because families will protect her, but there is hardly any question about the parents' accountability: it is they who decide that it is time for the mutilation, it is they who bring the child to the knife (or the razor blade) and they who pay the fees, and the expenses when the child is sent abroad. "Thanks to highly publicised trials and prevention measures, the number of mutilations has greatly decreased. "I am not saying that there are no more children taken abroad to be mutilated, but it is a fact that prosecutions followed by a trial with a penalty outcome are a powerful deterrent. "The detection of FGM is usually done through medical examination. "It is a duty for doctors or others such as social services, to report any mutilation or abuse committed on a minor. "In the last case for which I was in court, the first mutilation in that family was discovered when one of the girls had appendicitis. The surgeon discovered that the child was mutilated and the hospital reported to the prosecutor. Therefore a criminal case was opened. "This lead systematically to the medical examination of the sisters in order to detect if they too are [sic] mutilated." France has convicted over 100 complicit parents and FGM practitioners since 1988. If, in the UK, professionals fail to report FGM even when they do find evidence of the practice, the system remains reliant on the victim walking into a police station and accusing her family. Reality shows us this doesn't happen. Keir Starmer, DPP, said "Repealing existing laws would send the wrong message, but additional legislation is needed." Starmer has outlined plans to explore what other existing legislation FGM could be prosecuted under, and to actively explore a wider offence which does not require a child to be a witness; the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act, for example, creates an offence of causing or allowing a child or vulnerable adult to die or suffer serious physical harm. It would appear that two major lessons can be learned from France: to acknowledge medical evidence as sufficient evidence to prosecute an offence of FGM; and to that ensure educators, health professionals, police and prosecutors work together closely to safeguard children from FGM.  |
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