Women's Views on News |
| Stonewall to campaign for trans equality Posted: 16 Feb 2015 05:27 AM PST
Lesbian, gay and bisexual rights charity Stonewall has announced that it will extend its remit to campaign for trans equality in a landmark report. This historic move follows extensive consultation with over 700 trans people and will see the charity use its platform and experience to help create real change for them. Stonewall was founded in 1989 by a small group of women and men who had been active in the struggle against Section 28 of the Local Government Act. People whose aim was to create a highly professional lobbying organisation to put the case for sexual orientation equality on the mainstream political agenda. Some major successes include helping achieve the equalisation of the age of consent, lifting the ban on LGB people serving in the military, securing legislation allowing same-sex couples to adopt and the repeal of Section 28. More recently Stonewall has helped secure civil partnerships and then equal marriage and ensured the recent Equality Act protected lesbian, gay and bisexual people in terms of goods and services. But at that time campaigners for trans equality were also concerned to achieve legal reform, but to do this they needed to focus on an entirely different set of laws. Campaingers worked alongside each other to make sure that people understood the differences between sexual orientation and gender identity. As Stonewall's reach and influence grew, it began to develop campaigns and programmes to create change in schools, workplaces and in Britain's public services. At the same time the trans movement was changing. There were more diverse voices campaigning on a whole range of issues. Many people felt that Stonewall had the ability to achieve positive change for trans people, but didn't take this chance to open up a conversation about extending our remit. Stonewall also made mistakes that meant many people didn't trust it to include trans issues within its work. These mistakes happened because Stonewall failed to consult trans people and involve them in its projects. In 2014 Stonewall started to talk to trans people about whether it might be able to play a role in campaigning for trans equality. At the outset of that conversation Stonewall apologised for not taking this opportunity sooner, and for making mistakes in the past which have harmed trans communities. What followed was an extensive consultation which heard from over 700 trans people about their thoughts on the role Stonewall could play. And after apologising for previous mistakes, Stonewall started looking at the most effective ways of working in the future. Stonewall will now expand its current campaigns and programmes to include and involve trans people and also develop new work on issues that specifically affect them. Over the next 18 months, the charity will take steps to make sure that trans expertise is reflected in its board of trustees as well as recruiting experts to work with Stonewall staff. Stonewall will also work in partnership with trans organisations to avoid replicating work and focus on new projects so that all lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people can be themselves. Ruth Hunt, Stonewall's chief executive, said: 'Whether we're challenging bullying in our schools, tackling hate crime on our streets or working to make our public services truly equal for users, we have a responsibility to use our voice and share our 25 years of experience. 'This change marks a significant moment in Stonewall's history. As a community we can achieve much more by standing together. "This is an exciting but huge undertaking – we recognise that we are not instant experts, and will work closely with the trans community to achieve real change for LGBT people.”  |
| Femicide census details how many UK women die Posted: 16 Feb 2015 04:47 AM PST
Femicide is generally defined as the murder of women because they are women, although some definitions include any murders of women or girls. Femicide has also been used to describe killings of women by intimate partners and family members; and it has also been used to describe gender related killings in the community. In the United Kingdom on average two women have been killed by their male partners or former partners each week over the last ten years. Frequently these murders have been premeditated and follow a pattern of violence and abuse that has terrorised the victim. The Femicide Census includes a wide range of information about women in the UK who have been killed by fatal male violence. It names the perpetrators and the incident of murder itself, including the date, names, police force area, and information about children, recorded motive and the weapon used. Data shows 46 per cent of women in the census were killed by an intimate partner or ex-partner, 6 per cent by their son, 3 per cent by extended family and 3 per cent during a burglary. The term femicide was introduced in the last century to describe killings of women that were gender related in order to recognise the impact of inequality and discrimination, identified internationally as a root cause of violence against women. But although femicide has been identified globally as a leading a cause of premature death for women there is limited research on the issue in Europe. Much of the information currently found in the Femicide Census was initially based on the list of names collected by Karen Ingala Smith for her blog Counting Dead Women, which she started in January 2012. She searched the web for news of women who had been killed by men so her data was gathered from publicly available sources, primarily press articles. “People reel off statistics without thinking about the individuals. “Through naming the women and including pictures I’m trying to make the horror of what is happening feel more real. “I want it to be upsetting – this should be absolutely shocking,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I want us to stop seeing these killings as isolated incidents and to see the connections and patterns because you cannot solve a problem unless you understand it.” Freedom of Information Act (FoI) requests were subsequently made to police departments, local authorities and other public bodies throughout England which served to (a) verify certain information that had been collected and (b) identify new victims who had not been identified. Data was also collected from publicly available sources such as the press and the NHS Trust England website. The aim of the Femicide Census is to: Provide a clearer picture of domestic homicides in the UK by age/ethnic origin/ relationship/ profession/region/outcome; Provide a clearer picture of incidences of men's fatal violence against women that is not committed by a partner or ex-partner; Allow campaigners to utilise the information to create advocacy tools to provide concrete data on domestic violence homicides; Provide data when NGOs working to end domestic violence against women are providing expert evidence on domestic homicides in civil cases or before the Coroner's court; Allow campaigners to draw comparisons and parallels between cases and identify where there is the potential for a systemic argument against the State for failing to protect the Right to Life; and Provide a resource for academics researching femicides. The Global Study on Homicide in 2011 indicated that while there has been a decrease in homicides worldwide there has been an increased in the number of femicides. And in the UK, the most recent ONS figures show that 1.4 million women suffered domestic abuse in the year to March 2014, up 1.4 per cent from the previous year – and the report remarks that these rates remain stubbornly high, although violent crime more generally has continued to fall. “We are launching the Femicide Census to identify common themes so that we can learn from them, and so that we can reduce deaths by working with all relevant agencies and professionals to better protect women,” Polly Neate chief executive of Women’s Aid, told Yahoo News. “We need to know what happened to these women before their deaths – for example if there were previous reports of domestic violence, if they had previous contact with the police or other agencies, but the warning signs were not picked up on.” Anyone with information on cases where women have been killed by men can – please do – get in touch to add further information to help make the Census as complete as possible. Anyone who wants to help can find more information on the website.  |
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