News & Campaigns

All the latest from HER-itage and our affiliates

It’s time to #FaceHerFuture – Fawcett

Fawcett, with the support of many other women’s organisations, have launched a campaign to come together to present a positive vision for women in the UK, challenging the Government to make the UK the best place in the world to be a woman. The campaign is fighting for women’s rights to be protected post-Brexit. The Face Her Future coalition is demanding that current rights are not weakened either directly or indirectly as a result of the Brexit negotiations.

The Government faces a stark choice – to use the opportunity of Brexit to achieve transformational change for women in the UK or to turn the clock back on equality.  Women in the UK face a gender pay gap of 19%; 54,000 working mothers experience pregnancy discrimination every year, just 29% of MPs are women; 2 women each week die at the hands of a partner or ex-partner.

EU regulations and cases won in the European Court have given women in the UK the right to equal pay for equal value, maternity rights, part-time workers’ rights, pension entitlements and parental leave rights. International co-operation across the EU has tackled female genital mutilation, human trafficking and developed strategies to combat violence against women. Campaigners warn that these may all be at risk unless government makes women’s rights and women’s lives a key focus of the negotiations. They also argue that any economic downturn may hit women hardest. Previous welfare reforms and spending cuts have fallen disproportionately on women.  In these circumstances they maintain, women’s rights become vulnerable.

The coalition is calling for:

  • a guarantee that there will be no weakening of women’s rights post-Brexit either directly or indirectly ‘under cover’ of Brexit. Maternity rights, part-time workers’ rights and equal pay for work of equal value all derive from the EU.
  • women to be represented at every level of the negotiating process. The three cabinet ministers responsible for our Brexit negotiations (Davis, Fox and Johnson) are all men.
  • gender impact assessment of major spending decisions – we must ensure that women are not hit hardest by recession and austerity as they have been in the past.
  • a strategic focus on ending violence against women and girls, including international co-operation to do so.
  • Migrant workers from the EU who are already here to be allowed to remain.
  • Action to tackle racist abuse and hate crimes, including those disproportionately experienced by women

To kick off the campaign the Fawcett Society will be launching a social media challenge, calling on people to #FaceHerFuture and post photos of themselves with a woman they care about, stating what they want to see in her future. Please use #FaceHerFuture and get involved!

For more information on the campaign visit www.faceherfuture.co.uk

Organisations already signed up to be part of the #FaceHerFuture campaign include:

  • Fawcett Society
  • Centre for Women and Democracy
  • Girlguiding UK
  • Women’s Aid
  • Maternity Action
  • Equality and Diversity Forum
  • Women’s Resource Centre
  • Fearless Futures
  • British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS)
  • Tell MAMA
  • Coventry Women’s Voices
  • Working Families
  • Rights of Women
  • Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS)
  • The Centre for Gender Equal Media

Download the press release here.

More at http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/2016/07/its-time-to-faceherfuture/

July 29, 2016

State of the Sector Report – Challenging Austerity – Women’s Resource Centre

Support services for women are under threat from an unprecedented level of public spending cuts, with many organisations losing staff, reducing services or closing altogether.

This is a report of an analysis of a survey of women’s voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) across the UK conducted by Women’s Resource Centre (WRC) during April/ May 2016.

WRC has gathered this evidence to demonstrate how far the cuts have destabilised the women’s voluntary and community sector.

The survey was conducted anonymously so that no data, information or comment can be attributed to any one organisation.

http://thewomensresourcecentre.org.uk/state-of-the-sector-report-challenging-austerity-may-2016/

July 29, 2016

9 August 2016 ~ Mapping the Maze – Call for Local Consultation Partners – AVA – Closing date

Listening to the voices of women experiencing multiple disadvantage

AVA, in partner with the Agenda, the alliance for women and girls at risk, are delivering a project to map current service provision for women facing multiple disadvantage in the UK. As part of the project, we are looking to consult with women that have lived experience of multiple disadvantage about their views towards gender-sensitive services for women with complex needs.

To do this, we are looking for three partner organisations across England and Wales to organise a short consultation with women that have lived experience of multiple disadvantage. This will involve holding a meeting with 8-12 women and preparing notes of the session.

To deliver the meeting, you will be:

  • reimbursed up to £1,000 to cover the cost of staff time organising and holding the meeting and preparing notes, and to enable women with lived experience to participate, i.e. to cover the cost of travel and childcare and to compensate them for their time.
  • provided with full guidance and all materials needed to run the consultation.

We would like to hear from any organisations that:

  • have access to the target audience;
  • have staff with experience of conducting focus groups and consultations;
  • have capacity to hold a two-hour consultation meeting with 8-12 participants and write up notes of the discussion by the end of September 2016; and
  • are able to offer on-going support to any women that participate in the consultation.

If you meet this criteria and would like to be involved in this new project helping to shine a spotlight on the importance of and need for services for women and girls experiencing multiple disadvantage, please complete the short questionnaire overleaf and return to jennifer.holly@avaproject.org.uk by August 9th 2016.

All applicants will be considered and informed of the outcome of their application by August 18th. The primary selection criteria is ensuring we gather a wide range of views across England and Wales.

See also http://www.womensgrid.org.uk/vacancies/?p=3865

July 29, 2016

5 August 2016 ~ Mapping the Maze – Call for Evidence – AVA – closing date

AVA, in partner with the Agenda, the alliance for women and girls at risk, are delivering a project to map current service provision for women facing multiple disadvantage in the UK. In order to do that we are first conducting a literature review to determine what the core components of a gender sensitive service should comprise.

To this end, we would be very interested in receiving any internal/unpublished or published evaluations you may have relating to your service provision with women.

We are specifically looking for evaluations of services for women 18+ facing one or more of the following issues:  homelessness, substance use, criminal justice system, mental health, involvement in prostitution, violence and abuse.

We are interested in evaluations discussing service delivery for women in terms of any of the following:

  1. Organisation structure/philosophy
  2. Staff skills and competences
  3. Programme components
  4. Implementation guidance

If you think you may have something which fits this bill and happy to share with us, please send to jennifer.holly@avaproject.org.uk by August 5th 2016.

See also http://www.womensgrid.org.uk/vacancies/?p=3865

July 29, 2016

Response to the Home Affairs Select Committee’s Interim Report on Prostitution – Nordic Model Now

On 1 July 2016, the UK Parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) released an interim report on its inquiry into prostitution.

Nordic Model Now! welcomes the recommendation to decriminalise soliciting and to delete convictions and cautions for prostitution from criminal records, and the call for in-depth research. However, we have some serious concerns about other aspects of the report.

We are particularly concerned that it exhibits a significant bias. This is not surprising given that the committee is composed of eight men (Keith Vaz, James Berry, David Burrowes, Ranil Jayawardena, Tim Loughton, Stuart McDonald, Chuka Umunna, David Winnick) and only three women (Victoria Atkins, Nusrat Ghani, Naz Shah).

Prostitution is an extremely gendered institution, with the majority (80% or more) of those bought and sold in prostitution being female and 99% or more of the buyers (punters) being male. Prostitution therefore has a very different significance for women than for men. The committee has downplayed evidence of the harms that prostitution causes both to those who are in it, and to women and girls and gender equality more generally.

Moreover we find it troubling that many concerns about these serious and significant harms have been written off as “moral values” and “emotive” reactions, while the report fails to mention the thinly veiled entitlement that infuses many of the contributions from men and which inevitably clouds the judgement of the male members of the committee. Instead there is an unexamined and clearly incorrect assumption that they are acting dispassionately.

Conflicts of interest

It is notable that there is no mention of whether the members of the committee are or have been sex buyers. It is clear that this is a common male behaviour and the majority of the committee members are male, and so it is statistically likely that some of them are or have been sex buyers.

The inquiry had a brief to consider whether buying a person for sex should be criminalised. Being a sex buyer or having a history of sex buying is a therefore a clear conflict of interest. We believe there is a strong case that members should formally declare whether they are or have been sex buyers and if so, to step down from the inquiry.

Read the full article or download as at pdf file from https://nordicmodelnow.org/2016/07/17/response-to-the-home-affairs-select-committees-interim-report-on-prostitution/

July 26, 2016