Women's Views on News |
| Send your MP an SRE now Christmas card Posted: 19 Dec 2016 01:23 PM PST
It is 50 years since the Sexual Offences Act partially decriminalised male homosexual acts and started what has been a long and slow journey towards equality on its way. Next year’s LGBT History Month theme, 'PSHE, Citizenship and Law', was chosen to help schools mark this anniversary and to draw attention to the fact that PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education), despite being an important subject and channel for raising issues of equality in the classroom, is not an examined subject and so lacks the credibility of other areas of the National Curriculum. The Terrence Higgins Trust's 'SRE: Shh… No Talking' report, published in July 2016, highlighted that sex and relationships education (SRE) is inadequate or absent in many schools. The report was published following a survey of over 900 young people aged 16-24, and it revealed that: 99 per cent of young people surveyed thought SRE should be mandatory in all schools; 97 per cent thought it should be LGBT inclusive; one in seven respondents had not received any SRE at all; over half (61 per cent) received SRE just once a year or less; half of young people rated the SRE they received in school as either 'poor' or 'terrible'; just 2 per cent rated it as 'excellent' and only 10 per cent rated it as 'good'; and 95 per cent were not taught about LGBT relationships. Meanwhile, several key topics were conspicuously absent from respondents' experiences of SRE: 75 per cent of young people were not taught about consent; 95 per cent had not learned about LGBT sex and relationships; 89 per cent were not taught about sex and pleasure; 97 per cent missed out on any discussion around gender identity; and 3 out of 5 respondents either didn't remember receiving information on HIV in school (32 per cent) or didn't receive information on HIV in school (27 per cent). That needs to change. If you want to help change that, you can take action now. Download this Christmas card and send it to your MP, either as an attachment in an email or by printing it out and popping it in the post. You could even take a picture of a printed version of the card and Tweet it, or send a message on Facebook, to your MP. An 'All I Want For Christmas…Is Compulsory SRE' Christmas card is ready for you to use. You can find out who your MP is on the TheyWorkForYou website. You could write something like : 'Dear [insert name of your MP], I am a concerned constituent and would like to call on you to do all you can to ensure that Sex and Relationships Education is statutory in all schools. Attached is a Christmas card that asks for just that.Looking forward to hearing from you, [insert your name and your postcode]’. You can find out who your MP is and which address to send it to from the TheyWorkForYou website. Alternatively you could of course make or buy your own card to send in the post. You can find out if your MP is on Twitter by visiting their profile on the Parliament website. Tweet their handle, or mention their page name on Facebook, and use the hashtags #AllIWantForChristmas and #SRE. For more info on SRE, click here. Thanks.  |
| International congress: The last girl first Posted: 19 Dec 2016 12:55 PM PST
In January 2017, the 2nd World Congress against the sexual exploitation of women and girls will take place, in New Delhi, from 29 January to 31 January. Under the title “Last girl first“, it will be a gathering of 250 civil society representatives, leaders and decision-makers from 30 countries and 5 continents, including survivors of prostitution, representatives of the most marginalized women and girls (indigenous, low caste, migrant, minorities and women of colour), youth and student movements, trade unions, representatives from the new technologies sector, and members of parliaments. Youth speakers will be representatives of youth feminist organisations, activists from youth organisations dedicated to tackling the sex trade, young survivors, and young workers from abolitionist frontline organisations. Young people are more mobilised than ever for two reasons: because they are the first affected and harmed by the sex industry, and because they actively believe in and promote a contemporary conception of equality and sexuality that is not compatible with women's subordination to male privileges, economic power and domination. The programme of this 3-day event, which is being organised by CAP International and its Indian member organisation, Apne Aap, includes the following plenary sessions and workshops: 'The last girl first : ending sexual exploitation of the most marginalised women and girls' All over the world, and throughout history, the most systemically disadvantaged groups have been overrepresented in sexual exploitation and prostitution. Prostitution is a highly gendered and patriarchal system that disproportionately impacts the poorest women and young children. Victims of incest and sexual violence, indigenous women and children, low caste communities, migrant women and children, and women and girls from ethnic minorities are still the primary victims of sexual exploitation by pimps, traffickers and sex buyers. 'SAARC regional dynamics and challenges (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan…)' This session will offer a unique opportunity to assess the realities of prostitution and sexual exploitation in each country of the SAARC region, but also to understand the regional dynamics and flows of trafficking for sexual exploitation:Nepal to India, Bangladesh to Pakistan and India, countries of origin and transit countries for trafficking to the Gulf and Middle East, for example. Concrete avenues for action and recommendations will be presented by civil society leaders from the SAARC region. 'Youth and students movements for the abolition of prostitution' A new generation of abolitionist leaders is emerging in many countries. Young people are more mobilised than ever for two reasons: because they are the first affected and harmed by the sex industry, and because they actively believe in and promote a contemporary conception of equality and sexuality that is not compatible with women's subordination to male privileges, economic power and domination. 'Assessing the best legislative frameworks to end commercial sexual exploitation' In 1999, Sweden was the first country in the world to decriminalise prostituted persons, offer them protection and exit options, and simultaneously prohibit the purchase of sex. Iceland, Finland, Norway, Canada, Northern Ireland, and now France, have similarly shifted the criminal burden from the victims to the exploiters. During the French parliamentary process, Members of Parliament recognised that paying for sex was in itself a form of gender and sexual abuse. The French also expressed their intention to build a strong, inclusive society based on social justice and gender equality, and thus a society without prostitution. 'The launch of a global coalition of trade unions standing together against sexual exploitation' At CAP International's first World Congress Against Sexual Exploitation, held in November 2014 in Paris, several trade union representatives presented the commitment their organisations were making and going to make to fighting all forms of sexual exploitation, including the prostitution of others. Denouncing the economic and sexual exploitation underpinning this inherently harmful form of violence against women and girls, they also expressed their firm opposition to the ultraliberal concept of "sex work". 'Added value of new technologies in the fight against sexual exploitation' Several international research projects have demonstrated how the boom in new technologies, and in particular the internet, has given a new dimension to trafficking for sexual exploitation and prostitution. The internet offers unprecedented advantages that traffickers have been quick to exploit – such as the facilitation of communication, financial transactions, extraterritoriality, the capacity to recruit and "sell" online, and sex buyers' relative anonymity. This workshop aims to highlight the regulations, best practices and tools currently used to counter cyber exploitation, and identify innovative potential partnerships and ways of harnessing new technologies to fight commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking and provide direct help to victims. To register, click here.  |
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