Women's Views on News |
| Reclaim the Night: marches in 2015 Posted: 24 Nov 2015 04:57 AM PST
On 28 November 2015, more than a thousand women will take to the streets of central London in the annual women-only Reclaim the Night march. Join in! Close down central London for women, put your feet on the streets to shout a loud NO to rape and all forms of male violence against women. For event details, click here. The march and the speakers this year will highlight two major issues which have been important in 2015. The first is that we condemn Amnesty International's decision to support the full decriminalisation of all aspects of prostitution, including pimping brothel-owning and the buying of sex. We believe this violates the basic human rights of the women, children (and some men) involved in prostitution and is more damaging to women’s lives than the alternative approach – the Nordic model – which criminalises the demand for commercial sex, while fully decriminalising individuals in prostitution and providing them with support and exit services for those who wish to exit prostitution. The second is the current migrant crisis. Every year hundreds of women who have come to this country seeking refuge from persecution are locked up in detention. We believe the detention of women refugees, a lot of whom have survived sexual violence and torture, is never acceptable. Last year we celebrated the 10th anniversary of London Reclaim the Night with the largest event in several years. This year we will continue with the momentum that has gathered as the problems of male violence against women persist. Reclaim the Night came to the UK in 1977 when women in Leeds took to the streets to protest the police requesting women to stay at home after dark in response to the Yorkshire Ripper murders. Placards read “No curfew on women – curfew on men”. In 2015, conviction rates are still low and victim blaming remains rife. The statistics speak for themselves: in the UK two women a week are killed by their male partner or ex-partner, and 1 in 3 women experiences sexual abuse of some kind in their lifetime. The problem of male violence against women is endemic in our society and yet it is often hidden. Reclaim the Night is important because we bring the issues out into the open, in a visible protest conducted by women, stating in public the facts of male violence against women to ensure that these crimes cannot be hidden away or dismissed as minor and infrequent. This march is both a show of strength and a collective demand for justice. Reclaim the Night is one of the many actions UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon applauded when he said: “I welcome the chorus of voices calling for an end to the violence that affects an estimated one in three women in her lifetime.” But this year not only do we demonstrate against rape and all forms of male violence against women, we also march to defend our right to protest in the face of government cuts to policing and the expectation that unfunded campaigns should pay for private traffic management companies. London’s Reclaim the Night is traditionally held near the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which is on 25 November. Other Reclaim the Night marches are being hed throughout the country on different dates. For example: On 25 November at 17:30 ~ Reclaim the Night Paisley; 25 November at 18:00 ~ Reclaim the Night Leicester; on 25 November at 18:00 ~ Reclaim the Night Glasgow; 25 November at 18:30 ~ Reclaim the Night Stroud; and also on 25 November but at 20:30 ~ Reclaim the Night St Andrews. On 26 November at 18:30 ~ Reclaim the Night Exeter. On 27 November at 19:00 ~ Reclaim the Night Bristol and – also at 19:00 – Reclaim the Night Cornwall. On 28 November at 17:30 ~ Reclaim the Night Borders – Galashiels ; at 19:00 ~ Reclaim the Night Belfast and also at 19:00 ~ Reclaim the Night Dorchester. In December: 3 December at 18:00 ~ Reclaim the Night Dundee; on 5 December at 18:00 ~ Reclaim the Night Leeds and also on 5 December at 18:00 ~ the first ever Reclaim the Night Doncaster; and on 5 December at 18:00 ~ Reclaim the Night Barnsley. On 10 December at 19:00 ~ Reclaim the Night Kilmarnock. Violence against women continues to occur every minute of every day, but women everywhere are making a stand. Bring along your mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, nieces and daughters and come and join us at this year's Reclaim The Night.  |
| Rights of Women’s handbook launched Posted: 24 Nov 2015 02:18 AM PST
Published by Rights of Women, a women's charity working in a number of ways to help women through the law, the handbook, ‘Child arrangements and domestic violence: a handbook for women’, is a helpful, practical resource for women without a lawyer who are involved in child arrangements proceedings. Professionals who support women affected by domestic violence will also find this handbook a useful tool to help women through child arrangements cases. Topics it covers include: The law and the courts approach for child arrangements cases; The procedure for child arrangements cases, how to make an application, what happens at court, fact finding hearings and what happens after the final hearing; Information on advice and support including lawyers and McKenzie Friends; and Various aids such as flowcharts and example documents to help you along the way. Women who call the Rights of Women advice lines can request a free copy of ‘Child arrangements and domestic violence: a handbook for women’. You can also purchase a copy for £10. The book was launched at a conference on 'Child arrangements and domestic violence: protecting women and children in the Family Court' last month. The keynote speaker was Caroline Dinenage MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Women, Equalities and Family Justice. She thanked all the organisations represented in the audience for the work that they do, and assured everyone that she was "in listening mode" and committed to meeting with us to discuss the issues raised at the conference. Rights of Women's patron, Denise Robertson MBE, spoke passionately about the number of women who still contact her for advice on domestic violence and child contact and the fact that "in the family courts, women are routinely left baffled". She stressed how important it is for organisations like Rights of Women to provide information and advice, saying "the informed woman is a strong woman". The Guardian columnist Annalisa Barbieri, who is also a patron of Rights of Women, chaired a discussion on women's experiences of family justice. A survivor of domestic violence talked about her "sickening" experience of the Family Court. She gave examples of important and relevant evidence of the father's violent behaviour and risk to the family being ignored by the judge. She, like so many other women, felt demonised and judged before the case had even started, saying: "When I walked into court I immediately felt like I was on the back foot. I was another woman being unreasonable and causing trouble." Clare Laxton, of Women's Aid, said that child arrangements is the number one issue being raised by their members at the moment. And she spoke about the huge lack of understanding of coercive control amongst professionals in the family justice system. Laxton also talked about how perpetrators use child arrangement proceedings as a way to continue to exert control over mothers and about the myth that the Family Court is biased towards mothers. Legal aid solicitor and trained IDVA, Sophia Raja, highlighted the lack of risk assessments being carried out in the Family Court, partly due to lack of funding for experts. She also spoke about women without lawyers, particularly migrant women, being taken advantage of because they do not know their rights or the law. The Rights of Women's director, Emma Scott, closed the conference by quoting one of the workshop participants: "there is a need for a clear pathway" for survivors of domestic violence involved in child arrangements proceedings. Rights of Women aim to provide women with the legal advice and information they need to understand and use the law and their legal rights and work to improve the law for women and increase women's access to justice. Rights of Women was formed in 1975 as a direct response to the fifth demand of the Women's Liberation Movement for legal and financial independence for women. A group of women legal workers founded the organisation to help women find their way around the many man-made laws that affected them, and worked – hard – to expose the bias against women in family law and in the social security system. Over 40 years Rights of Women’s services have developed and have provided many thousands of women with free legal advice and information to increase their access to justice and the group has campaigned for changes in the law which protect women from violence and discrimination. To read Rights of Women’s 4oth anniversary publication click here.  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Women's Views on News. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |