Saturday, July 6, 2013

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Big food collection this weekend

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 09:35 AM PDT

poverty, UKOne in five parents in the UK is struggling to feed their children, new research has revealed.

The research shows more than twenty per cent of parents have skipped meals, gone without food to feed their children or relied on family members or friends for food in the last twelve months.

The research, carried out by Tesco, the Foodbanks charity the Trussell Trust and food redistribution charity FareShare comes as the three organisations prepare to hold the biggest ever food collection in the UK on the 5 and 6 July.

Seventy per cent of families suffering from food poverty with children in primary school education rely in some part on food supplied by schools, either through free school meals or food given out by breakfast or after school clubs.

The upcoming school summer holidays could now see a large number of children going hungry.

More than a quarter of parents suffering from some form of food poverty said they were unable to provide food for all the meals their children need during the school holidays.

The research also shows the problem of food poverty is unlikely to improve in the near future, with only a third of people currently suffering from food poverty expecting their situation to improve in the next twelve months.

Rebecca Shelley, Group Corporate Affairs Director at Tesco said: "This research reveals that since our last national food collection in December, the problem of food poverty in the UK has increased and shows no signs of improving.

It's hitting families hard, especially when resources like free school meals, breakfast clubs and after school clubs are not available.

"Because we have stores in so many communities across the UK, we are working with the help of our customers, thousands of our colleagues and volunteers from the Trussell Trust and FareShare to help provide emergency food to people who are struggling."

The National Food Collection will take place in every Tesco store in the country and will help provide much needed food for the Trussell Trust foodbank network and the 900 UK charities supported by FareShare.

Tesco held its first national collection in December last year, raising the equivalent of 2.4 million meals for people in need. As in December, the retailer will be topping up total donations this time by a further 30 per cent.

Lindsay Boswell, CEO of FareShare said: "FareShare supports more than 900 frontline charities across the country by providing them with good quality, nutritious food.

“These charities offer not only a meal, but invaluable support to some of the poorest people in our society.

“Alarmingly, more than a third of these are organisations like breakfast and after school clubs that help feed vulnerable children.

"This collection comes at a crucial time. We fed more people than ever before last year but the demand for our services is rapidly increasing, as more people turn to charities for food than at any other time in FareShare's history. Thanks to the generous support of Tesco and their customers, we'll be able to provide them with even more at a time of urgent need."

Chris Mould, chairman of the Trussell Trust said: “That one in five parents in this country are struggling to afford food for their families and thousands more people are turning to foodbanks for emergency food is a stark reminder of how tough things have become for many ordinary people.

“Trussell Trust foodbanks have recently seen the biggest ever increase in numbers turning to us for help – almost 350,000 people received three days emergency food in 2012-13, 170 per cent more than the previous year.

"We’re meeting parents who’ve gone hungry for days in order to feed their children, and school holidays are always especially difficult with many budgets stretched to breaking point.

“Our foodbanks across the UK are working tirelessly to meet the growing demand and the Tesco collection will provide vital supplies to help stop families going hungry this summer."

The research:

Eighteen per cent of people in the UK have suffered from some form of food poverty, including skipping meals, parents going without food to feed their children or relying on family or friends to provide food. The figure rises to 21 per cent for households with children;

The problem of food poverty is higher in 18-24 year olds with 44 per cent of this age group saying they had experienced some form of food poverty in the last six months.

School holidays are a particularly difficult time for families, with more than a quarter of parents saying they can't provide food for all the meals their children need.

More than four in five parents in food poverty worry that they will struggle to provide nutritious food for their children in the near future and more than 50 per cent of these parents have gone without food to feed their family, with a quarter of doing so on a weekly basis or more often.

The National Food Collection: Tesco colleagues, volunteers from FareShare and the Trussell Trust and members of the Tesco Retired Staff Association will be helping customers donate food on the 5 and 6 July.

The spending review and women

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 08:37 AM PDT

spending review, effects on women‘The Chancellor has not prioritised the services most vital to women’.

Last week's spending review saw Chancellor George Osborne announcing the government's spending plans for 2015-16.

He chose investment in a huge roads programme but will still leave millions of women on the road to precarious employment and poverty, according to the UK Women's Budget Group (WBG).

Local government provides services that are crucial to women and funding for many women's organisations but its budget has been cut by a further 10 per cent. At the same time he has found enough money to avoid cuts to the defence budget.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport faces a cut of 7 per cent, but 'elite sport' has been protected with no indication that community sports will receive similar treatment.

He says he has protected NHS spending but has made no allowance for health service costs rising faster than inflation and the increased demand of an ageing population and a rising birth-rate.

And his previous commitment to protect the NHS has not prevented the destruction of thousands of nurses' jobs.

Chancellor announced £50bn investment in infrastructure projects but once again priority has been given to physical infrastructure – investment in new roads, two rail links and in guarantees for new nuclear plants.

He made no mention of new investment in social infrastructure such as care for children and frail elderly people, which would create more new jobs – especially for women – than construction, would respond to urgent and expanding social need and would provide a larger stimulus to the economy.

The Chancellor says every job loss in the public sector is offset by three created in the private sector.

So why is this not reflected in economic growth?

It can only be because the new jobs are lower paid, more precarious and part-time when rising costs of living and stagnant wages mean most people need full-time employment. And yet he announces further public sector job cuts, which will mean yet more women pushed into low-quality jobs.

For those who stay in the public sector, loss of pay progression will harm the lowest paid workers and entrench existing gender pay inequalities.

Yet further changes will be introduced to the social security system to make cuts of over £350m a year.

Most troubling is the plan to make the unemployed and precariously employed wait seven days before giving them access to Universal Credit which is expected to save £250m a year. This is just another way to take money from those who need it most.

It will hit women, the Budget Group points out – especially those with young children – particularly hard since they are often the ones in low-paid, insecure jobs.

In a context where the majority of children are already expected to be living below the Minimum Income Standard by 2015, this can only make matters worse.

For a full transcript of the Chancellor’s speech, click here.

The UK Women's Budget Group is an independent voluntary organisation bringing together over 200 individuals from academia, local and national government, non- government organisations and trade unions to conduct Gender Budget Analysis and promote Gender Responsive Budgeting by the UK Government.

The aim is to show the impact that government taxation and expenditure can have on women’s everyday lives, especially women experiencing poverty and identify feminist alternatives to policies that are not supportive of gender equality and women's rights.

Viewing the world from a different perspective

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 05:45 AM PDT

underwater‘No one has ever heard of an underwater wheelchair’.

Through improvised performances in an underwater wheelchair, Sue Austin's art asks viewers to reconceive their conceptions of what disability is and what is possible when living with disability.

Austin says that her works of transformation are designed to involve spectators.

‘Because no one has ever heard of an underwater wheelchair before (and it is about creating new ways of seeing, being and knowing), now that you have this concept in your mind, you are part of the artwork too.’

Called Creating the Spectacle, the videoed performance is Austin's underwater ballet.

Filmed in 2012 in the waters off Sharm el-Sheikh, in Egypt, she says that it feels more like flying than diving.

Having used a wheelchair since 1996, after a long-term illness led to issues with her mobility, Austin's first experience in an electric wheelchair brought her ‘an amazing sense of exhilaration at being free to speed through the streets, mobile again.’

When she began training in 2005 as a disabled diver, she noticed similar feelings of freedom and adventure and sought to capture and replicate those feelings through her art.

Initially funded by a grant from the Arts Council England, Austin's repertoire now includes web and live performances as part of London's 2012 Cultural Olympiad, a film installation at London's Royal Festival Hall, international tours as part of live art events, international screenings of her films and speaking at TEDxWomen in Washington DC.

And now Austin's multi-media approach to art is expanding into the world of business.

She is the founder and creative director of Freewheeling, a ‘disability-led initiative providing a “hub” around which to foster integrated arts projects.’

Part of Freewheeling's mission is to help reposition disability arts more firmly and clearly in the general arts and cultural sectors, and Austin emphasises that academic research is an important part of accomplishing that.

She is currently finishing her MA in Contemporary Art Practice at Plymouth University, and her work will be on display as a part of the 2013 MA show from 12 to 18 July.

Other forthcoming works include film screenings in Austria, a live performance in the fifth largest aquarium in the world and a live art event in Germany in November.

And as part of Austin's work as a Director of Freewheeling, she and her team are in the process of developing a commercially available underwater wheelchair.

The wheelchair that Austin uses in her performances has two propellers, an acrylic hydrofoil on each side and an inflatable dive wing in the back and is a design that she and her diving partners have perfected over time.

Patents for the chair have been published, and ‘Freewheeling is currently seeking sponsorship’ to complete the development of the project.

Having named her underwater wheelchair Portal ‘because it has literally pushed me through into a new dimension, into a new way of being,’ Austin believes that ‘viewing the world from a different perspective inspires [everyone] to be free to explore new experiences.’

Freewheeling is on Facebook and YouTube.

Ban buying sex says Irish review

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 04:01 AM PDT

prostitution, Ireland, reviewIreland should criminalise purchasers of sexual services and decriminalise those selling them.

The Oireachtas Justice Committee, which opened for submissions on reforming Ireland's prostitution laws almost a year ago, reported its findings to the government last week.

The current laws in Ireland have been criticised for failing to adequately protect victims of human trafficking.

While it is not illegal to buy or sell sexual services in Ireland, it is illegal to buy sex from a person who has been trafficked.

However, an absence of strict liability enables defendants to deny culpability based on ignorance about a person having been trafficked – eg by saying they didn’t know.

And there is also ambiguity in the current legislation about how to define a "trafficked person".

The ‘Swedish model’, from which the committee's recommendations deride, makes provision in law for a summary offence which penalises the purchase, or any attempt to do so, of sexual services from another person through prostitution.

The aim is to reduce the stigma and help those involved in sex work to seek help from support services and the Gardaí, hte Irish police service,  also decriminalise those who sell sexual services.

Committee chairman, David Stanton TD, said: “The committee finds persuasive the evidence it has heard on the reduction of demand for prostitution in Sweden since the introduction of the ban on buying sex 1999.

“It concludes that such a reduction in demand will lessen the incidence of harms associated with prostitution and – particularly in view of the predominance of migrant women in prostitution in Ireland – the economic basis for human trafficking into the State for the purpose of sexual exploitation.”

The committee received over 800 submissions from 24 organisations and individuals which iterated the link between prostitution and organised crime.

It also revealed some other worrying statistics.

Of 134 people sex-trafficked in Ireland in the three previous years, one in four of them was a child.

Under the current legislation, it is also incredibly hard to secure a conviction against those charged with soliciting, and in 2012 only three out of 46 prosecutions were successful.

Conviction rates are similarly low for brothel keeping, with only 8 prosecutions from 47 arrests last year.

The committee has also recommended other legal reforms, including tougher penalties for traffickers and pimps, granting anonymity to witnesses in cases of sexual exploitation, and making grooming of a child or vulnerable person a criminal offence.

Premises advertised as massage parlours should, the committee found, be subject to regulation and inspection.

Accessing websites advertising prostitution should be subject to the same penalties as those that advertise or distribute child pornography.

Sarah Benson, chief executive of Ruhama, a charity which works with victims of trafficking and women in the sex trade, welcomed the committee's proposals.

"The recommendations of this report are a validation of the need to shift the focus of the law from those who are vulnerable and exploited in prostitution, who need support and not convictions – towards the sex buyers."

The committee's proposals, however, have been viewed with caution by the Sex Workers Alliance in Ireland (SWAI), which claims that by homogenising the needs of trafficked and non-trafficked persons in an attempt to curb prostitution, the authorities will fail to protect adequately those involved and push sex work back underground.

SWAI  said it was against human trafficking of any kind but supports a harm reduction approach in relation to sex work but “we know this change in the law will put sex workers civil, human, safety and health rights at risk.”

But either way, at the present time, and with the current legal framework, lives are at risk.

As a result, Justice Minister Alan Shatter, who will now consider the report's findings, has been urged by members of all the political parties in the committee to implement changes to the current system as soon as possible.

Behind the sun, sea and sand

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 01:09 AM PDT

holiday, rape figures, supportWomen are eight times more likely to be raped while on holiday, a study has found.

As the summer holiday season approaches and we begin to embark on travels to sunnier climes, there has been a reminder that the threat of sexual harassment is ever-present.

Research from the European Institute of Studies on Prevention (Irefea) has found that British tourists are eight times more likely to experience rape while on holiday than at home.

Studies of young British and German holidaymakers, who were issued with questionnaires at various airports as they prepared to leave resorts around the Mediterranean, revealed that 1.7 per cent had had sex against their will – a figure which is eight times higher than the national rate.

The survey was conducted on 6,502 tourists aged between 16-35 years at airports in Crete, Cyprus, Italy, Portugal, and Spain in the summer of 2009.

The research, published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour, found that one in ten British women had been sexually assaulted or harassed during their holiday, compared with one in fifteen British men.

Women, the study found, reported the highest levels of sexual harassment and were 2.4 times more likely to have suffered sexual harassment than heterosexual men.

Reports of harassment were highest among holidaymakers in Mallorca and Crete.

Researchers also suggest an association between higher levels of harassment with those who were young, frequent drinkers – or attracted to bars where people get drunk, or those who used cocaine.

Amador Calafat, leader of the study, is reported in the Daily Mail as suggesting that the research is evidence that, 'people leaving their inhibitions at home could be putting themselves at risk once they reach their holiday destination'.

It is not, of course, 'a loss of inhibition', or drink, or drugs that is to blame for violence against women – it is those committing the crimes.

Let us just remind ourselves of advice from Rape Crisis England and Wales: "100 per cent of the responsibility for any act of sexual violence lies with its perpetrator. There is no excuse for sexual violence – it can never be justified, it can never be explained away and there is no context in which it is valid, understandable or acceptable."

It continues: "If you have been raped or experienced any other kind of sexual violence, no matter where you were, what you were doing, what you were wearing, what you were saying, if you were drunk or under the influence of drugs, it was not your fault and you did not deserve this."

Let's not, then, allow these findings to be corrupted into "evidence" for victim blaming, but a wake-up call for the authorities in holiday hotspots to be providing more support and assistance to women and men experiencing harassment and assault while they are on holiday.

While Rape Crisis England and Wales gives sound advice about medical and legal assistance for victims of rape and sexual assault abroad, it directs you to Rape Crisis Network Europe for information about rape crisis services in European countries.

Yet at the time of writing this article, the website search for Rape Crisis Network Europe produced no details of a single support service in either Spain or Greece – the countries that this research suggests have the biggest problems with harassment and assault.

A leaflet from the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which gives information to those who have suffered rape and sexual assault overseas, reveals that in most countries a victim must report the crime before leaving the country and many countries will not open a criminal investigation if the crime is reported in the UK once a victim has returned home.

Rather than an excuse for victim blaming, this research should be seen as highlighting the inadequacy of support services for victims of sexual abuse abroad and should be a wake-up call to the authorities in these destinations to tackle the issue of sexual harassment and abuse towards tourists, not only actively implementing strategies to reduce the incidence of these crimes, but supporting victims.

It is also a reminder that while a holiday may be an escape from many of the issues of our day to day lives, it is not, sadly, an escape from violence against women.