Women's Views on News |
- Irish women plan strike over abortion ban
- Support new Amnesty motion on prostitution
- We just want things to change
| Irish women plan strike over abortion ban Posted: 23 Jan 2017 02:16 PM PST
An ad-hoc, non-affiliated group of activists, academics, artists and trade unionists in Ireland are preparing a nationwide Strike for Repeal on 8 March 2017. They want the Irish government to call a referendum to repeal the 8th Amendment by 8 March. If not, Ireland will go on strike. It is a criminal offence to have an abortion in the Republic of Ireland, where women who have one face up to 14 years in prison. This is the case for all pregnancies, including those conceived as a result of rape or incest, or where the foetus cannot survive outside the womb due to a fatal abnormality. Abortions are prohibited under a clause in the Irish Constitution known as the Eighth Amendment which grants a foetus the same citizenship and rights as a pregnant woman. Constitutional clauses in Ireland can only be removed if a referendum finds majority support to repeal it. The Irish government has previously pledged to hold a referendum on the Eighth Amendment but repeatedly failed to do so, resulting in growing frustrations among feminists locally who say the government has failed to commit to clear action to reform the laws. It is estimated 12 women that travel from the country to Great Britain every day to access a safe and legal termination. The strike will not be an industrial strike in the traditional sense but could include taking an annual leave day off work, refraining from domestic work for the day, wearing black in solidarity or staging a walkout during your lunch break. Women who do not go out to work could withdraw emotional or domestic labour, such as housework or caring duties, roles which are disproportionately performed by women. Any business owners in a position to close their services at no cost to workers, are being asked to do so for all or part of the day as a solidarity action. The following groups have signed on to support the strike so far: Abortion Rights Campaign; Aims Ireland; Repeal the 8th Sligo – Abortion Rights Campaign ARC; Mayo Pro-Choice; Parents for Choice in Pregnancy and Childbirth; Rally For Choice Ireland; Strike 4 Repeal Belfast; Outhouse; Women on Web; Anti Racism Network Ireland; MASI – Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland; Trinity College Strike 4 Repeal; Feminist Society Maynooth; Feminist Society NUIG; NCAD Feminist Society; Limerick Feminist Network; Sex Workers Alliance Ireland; Repeal Global; Dziewuchy Dziewuchom Irlandia; People Before Profit Pro Choice; Need Abortion Ireland; and Community Solidarity. For more information click here or go to @strike_4_repeal on Twitter. #strike4repeal #wewontwait Strike4Repeal’s Aoife Frances said: "We call upon the government to take direct responsibility for what is a violation of human rights. "We believe a national strike is not only possible, but an incredible opportunity to show the sheer power of our movement, and to put pressure on the government to call a referendum. "In the past 5 years, support for repeal has grown to a level that the government can no longer ignore."  |
| Support new Amnesty motion on prostitution Posted: 23 Jan 2017 12:49 PM PST
On 26 May 2016, Amnesty International (AI) formally adopted a policy that called for the full decriminalisation of the sex trade. While Amnesty International's call for the full decriminalisation of all prostituted women, children, men and transgendered people, is welcomed, Nordic Model Now! very strongly disagrees with Amnesty's call to decriminalise pimps, procurers and brothel owners and those who buy human beings for sex. For under a veneer of concern for the human rights of the marginalised human beings who make up the vast majority of those in prostitution, Amnesty's policy document is riddled with logical inconsistencies, omissions of key information and flawed reasoning. The policy AI is supporting calls for laws that protect the health and safety of those in prostitution – as if prostitution can be made reasonably healthy and safe. The dangers to women and girls' health and safety do not stop at STIs and HIV (which would be bad enough) but include unwanted pregnancy, stabbings, broken bones, permanent damage to sphincters and internal organs, PTSD, anxiety, depression, suicide, and murder – all caused by the actions of pimps and punters and not by the stigma that the policy is so concerned with. What legislation or regulations can protect against such damage when violence is inherent to prostitution itself? Dr Anna Cleaves proposed a motion to Amnesty International UK (AIUK) asking the International Secretariat to re-evaluate its policy on prostitution. The resolution has been accepted, and it will be debated at the AIUK Conference in Nottingham on 8 and 9 April 2017. This is not the first proposal from a national Amnesty section calling on the international organisation to reconsider its prostitution policy. A similar resolution was adopted by the French section. Please pass on the word and encourage support for the motion. If you are a member of AIUK, please go to the AIUK Conference and vote for the motion. Dr Anna Cleaves' motion calls on AIUK to advocate to the international secretariat board to: 1 – Undertake balanced, rigorous research to make comparisons from recent findings between countries where prostitution is either decriminalised or legalised or which have adopted the Swedish legal framework (the latter being countries by which the UK is now practically surrounded); 2 – Use inclusive terminology to represent people in the sex trade rather than the term 'sex worker' and 'sex work', terms not representative of how most people in prostitution identify. The terms fail to include the vast majority of those in prostitution, 90 per cent of whom are women. A more inclusive term would be 'prostituted persons'; 3 – Work with survivors of prostitution, to support their human rights and to recognise what survivor organisations are saying about the men who buy and pimp women; and 4 – Review the framework in which any policy on prostitution should sit. Alternative policy frameworks such as the elimination of all forms of discrimination against Women (CEDAW), prevention of torture and trauma or ending violence should be considered. To recognise that the Harm Reduction principle identified in AI's policy is inappropriate in the context of prostitution. Evaluating the decriminalisation of prostitution in 1999 in Denmark, in 2012 the Danish Social Agency reported an increase in the prevalence of prostitution. The New Zealand Law Review Committee found, in 2008, that decriminalisation did not curb the high levels of violence that prostituted individuals experienced, demonstrating that prostitution is inherently violent and abusive, and the majority of prostituted persons are female whereas the majority of sex-buyers are male. Empirical analysis for a cross-section of 150 countries showed that on average countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported human trafficking inflows. Research published in 2013 showed that none of the objectives – to destroy the stigma of prostitution; end trafficking; improving safety and generate tax revenues – of the legalisation introduced in Holland in 2000 had been achieved. The Swedish Sexual Purchases Act (1999) in which buying sex became a criminal offence has now been adopted in France, Northern Ireland, Norway, Iceland, Canada, Lithuania and Israel and is supported by the European Parliament. It holds that prostituted people are decriminalised, criminal records are wiped clean and Exit programmes are offered. In Sweden, street prostitution has halved, and the number of murders of women in prostitution has dropped. In evaluating the Swedish law, in 2010 Justice Skarhed submitted that on a gender equality and human rights perspective, shifting focus away from those who are exploited in prostitution to focussing on demand, i.e. traffickers, procurers and sex purchasers, the distinction between voluntary and non-voluntary prostitution is irrelevant. The 1949 UN Convention on the Suppression of Trafficking in Persons, declared that prostitution and trafficking are exploitative and 'incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community'. And the 2000 UN Palermo Protocol against Transnational Organised Crime said that any form of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve consent nullifies the apparent consent. Hence there is no such thing as 'consensual prostitution'. For, as survivor Rachel Moran has said: 'To depict prostitution as chosen, with the prostitute in control, is to sanitise the true nature of prostitution: the commercialisation of sexual abuse.'  |
| Posted: 23 Jan 2017 11:56 AM PST
Findings revealed by The Fawcett Society’s research help to explain why misogyny is so widespread, why violence against women and girls remains commonplace, and why the gender pay gap remains so hard to close. One question the survey asked was: "if a woman goes out late at night, wearing a short skirt, gets drunk and is then the victim of a sexual assault, is she totally or partly to blame?" Fawcett's analysis revealed that 38 per cent of all men and 34 per cent of all women said that she is totally or partly to blame; 41 per cent of men aged 18-24 and 30 per cent of women the same age agree; 14 per cent of men aged 18-34 say she is "totally to blame"; and women aged over 65 were more likely to blame her, with 55 per cent saying she is totally (5 per cent) or partly (50 per cent) to blame compared to 48 per cent of men the same age. The findings were published in the Fawcett Society's new report, Sounds Familiar, and launched last week. The Fawcett Society's Chief Executive, Sam Smethers, said: "I can think of no other crime where we are so ready to blame the victim but here women are being held responsible for the behaviour of their attacker. "It is quite extraordinary and reveals just how deep-seated our readiness to blame women runs within our culture. "This resonated with the young women we spoke to who told us about the lad culture they experience on a daily basis and the way they have to manage the situation if they are approached in a bar for example. "Just saying the word 'no' can escalate to violence. "But what these women called for was education, not blame. "They just want things to change which is why we must have statutory age appropriate sex and relationships education across all our schools." Sounds Familiar brings together qualitative data from interviews and focus groups with young women and includes a new analysis of major national survey data of over 8,000 people carried out by Survation. The survey also found: A stubborn minority of men don't want the women in their lives to have equality. Almost 1 in 5 (18 per cent) men aged 25-34 and 14 per cent of men aged 18-24 said that they "do not want the women in my life to have equality of opportunity with men". They think that they will be worse off as a result. 17 per cent of men aged 25-34 said they would be disadvantaged if women and men were more equal and 20 per cent of men aged 25-34 said women's equality has "gone too far". Other men think women are equal already: 42 per cent of men and 25 per cent of women aged 18-24 thought women and men are equal now. This falls to 25 per cent for men over 65 (17 per cent for women aged over 65). And some men are particularly hostile to feminism itself: 24 per cent of men aged 18-24 and 33 per cent of men aged 25-34 said they oppose feminism, feel excluded by feminism, or think feminism is irrelevant. But the Fawcett Society also points to evidence to suggest that younger men in particular are also more likely to describe themselves as feminist. And 48 per cent of men aged 18-24 said they would benefit if we had a society where men and women are more equal. This falls to 33 per cent for over-65s. Although lower than other age groups, 75 per cent of men aged 25-34 and 79 per cent of those aged 18-24 do want the women in their lives to have equality of opportunity with men; 75 per cent of women aged 18-24 said they would benefit from a more equal society; and 19 per cent of women aged 18-24 and 11 per cent of men aged 18-24 described themselves as feminist. This is significantly higher than the incidence in the wider female population (9 per cent) or male population (4 per cent). And 65 per cent of young women and 62 per cent of young men said that when they think about their career choices they think about whether a job is likely to allow them to balance work and family. The survey suggests this generation in particular holds polarised views about women's equality and feminism. Smethers added: "Far from being an entirely negative picture, we also see that the majority of young men are allies for women and for feminism. "Young men are also as likely as young women to be looking for flexibility and thinking about how they combine work and family life. They can see that addressing these inequalities will help them too. "We have to make common cause with them and isolate those who would hold us all back." The qualitative work identified three main issues that are important to young women: that gender norms and stereotypes are holding them back; sexual harassment and lad culture are an everyday occurrence; and identity matters. Fawcett is responding to these issues by launching the #Sounds Familiar campaign to encourage young women in particular to share their experiences and send a message to others who have had similar experiences. Alongside the report Fawcett is releasing three short animations which capture the key issues that young women today said were important to them. Click here to watch them. Smethers concluded: "These stories sound far too familiar to many women. "But it's young women and men who hold the key to changing it. "I think there are positive signs of a significant shift in attitudes and expectations amongst generations which will drive things forward." To read the full report, click here.  |
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