News & Campaigns

All the latest from HER-itage and our affiliates

17 September 2016 18:00 ~ The Feminist Library: a short film in support of the Save the Feminist Library Campaign – London

Until 21:00 @ The Feminist Library, 5 Westminster Bridge Road, SE1 7XW

Join us for the premiere of The Feminist Library: a short film by Anais Charles.

Entry by donation to the Feminist Library Fighting Fund.

Shot during 2015 -16, this 30-minute documentary records a critical period for the Feminist Library when it is fighting for its very survival.

Through a series of interviews with library volunteers past and present, the film traces the library’s 40-year history, exploring its importance as an archive and social space, and why its preservation is so important.

The screening will be followed by a discussion about the future of the Feminist Library; we look forward to updating you on our potential new home for the collection and progress with the Save the Library campaign.

Watch the Trailer at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7udZsMXK5v0

Check details at https://www.facebook.com/events/292055204507035/

See also http://feministlibrary.co.uk/feminist-library-film-premiere-saturday-17-september/

September 16, 2016

3 October 2016 ~ Women’s Equality Party Conference 2016 – Early BirdTickets’ Deadline Extended

WE are doing politics differently. Our first party conference will be a chance to take a fresh look at politics in the UK.

Conference is your opportunity to decide what your party should look like, and to help to shape what WE should do next.

The first ever Women’s Equality Party conference will take place at Victoria Warehouse, Manchester from Friday 25th November – Sunday 27th November 2016.

Non-members may attend conference as observers but only registered Women’s Equality Party members are eligible to vote. Join today and gain full access to conference.

Click here to begin purchasing tickets

Phase 1 tickets are now available until Monday 3rd October*
Phase 2: 3rd October – early November, remaining tickets will be sold at an increased price.

  • Standard tickets £70
    Available to registered party members.
  • Concessions £50
    Including those who are unwaged, full-time students, retired and/or full-time carers.
  • Women’s Sector workers £50
    Conference ticket applications must be made via an email address connected to a registered charity or similar women’s organisation.
  • Observer (non-corporate) £90
    For non-party members. Please note, only registered members have full voting rights.
  • Corporate Observer £200
    For non-party members sponsored by their company.
  • Children Under 14
    It is free for children to attend but advanced registration is vital.

Click here to begin purchasing tickets

For press tickets please email press@womensequality.org.uk.

For sponsorship and exhibition opportunities please email info@womensequality.org.uk.

WE have a limited number of supported places available for members who would otherwise be unable to attend the conference. Click here for more information.

Can you help someone else to come to conference? Please donate to our access fund here.

Terms and Conditions

Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable.

Those purchasing student tickets will be required to provide photo ID in advance of attending conference.

Ticket application does not confer any right upon the applicant to attend the conference, and the Women’s Equality Party reserves the right to refuse admission without giving a reason.

Non-members who wish to attend conference must purchase an observers pass. Membership details will be checked against all standard tickets purchased. We reserve the right to eject non-members who have purchased the wrong tickets and non-members will not be allowed to vote.

http://www.womensequality.org.uk/conference_2016_tickets

Download the conference programme from http://www.womensequality.org.uk/whats_happening_at_conference

Other conference details http://www.womensequality.org.uk/conference_2016

September 16, 2016

SOS success: Women’s Aid welcomes the government’s commitment to fully exempt domestic violence refuges from two planned welfare reforms

In a triumph for the Women’s Aid SOS Campaign, and the Give Me Shelter campaign which we developed with The Sun, the government has announced that domestic violence refuges will be fully exempt from two planned welfare reforms – the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) cap on housing benefit rates in supported accommodation, and the requirement for social landlords to reduce rents by 1% each year from 2017-2020.

Polly Neate, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid, said:

“On behalf of our national membership network of domestic abuse services, we thank the government for this morning confirming that refuges will be exempt from changes to the housing benefit cap until 2019, and from the 1% rent reduction, which will ensure that refuges remain financially sustainable. We warmly welcome the news that the government will be working with Women’s Aid to develop a permanent sustainable solution to refuge funding that ensures that refuges do not see a reduction in current levels of funding. Refuges rely on housing benefit to cover, on average, 89% of their weekly housing costs –the money needed to fund buildings, maintenance and essential services. If the cap went ahead as planned, Women’s Aid warned that two thirds of refuges would be forced to close, and 87% would have not been able to provide the same level of service provision to protect women and children survivors of domestic abuse.

This announcement follows the call we made to government as part of our SOS Campaign to urgently exempt refuges from these devastating changes. We have been running the Campaign on behalf of our national network of members, who provide lifesaving services and the thousands of women and children experiencing domestic abuse they support. This news will save refuges that otherwise would have closed down, and save countless lives.”

Notes

  1. This is a brilliant result for the SOS Campaign and we would really like to thank all the Campaign Champions and Women’s Aid members who have supported our Campaign. To find out more or become a Campaign Champion visit https://www.womensaid.org.uk/campaign-champions/.
  2. For more information on the campaign so far see https://www.womensaid.org.uk/what-we-do/campaigning-and-influencing/campaign-with-us/sos/
  3. For any further media enquiries, please contact our press office.

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/sos-success-womens-aid-welcomes-governments-commitment-fully-exempt-domestic-violence-refuges-two-planned-welfare-reforms/

September 16, 2016

CPS prosecuting and convicting more cases of rape, domestic abuse, sexual offences and child abuse than ever before – Rape Crisis England & Wales

The Crown Prosecution Service is prosecuting and convicting a record number of rape, domestic abuse, sexual offences and child abuse cases, a recently published report shows.

The CPS’s annual Violence against Women and Girls report shows that rape, domestic abuse and sexual offences now account for 18.6% of the CPS’s total caseload and this figure has been increasing year-on-year. In 2015/16, the CPS prosecuted 117,568 defendants for all crimes grouped together as Violence against Women and Girls (VaWG).

More than 100,000 defendants were prosecuted for domestic abuse, with over 75,000 convicted – the highest volumes ever recorded, also reaching the highest ever conviction rate of 75.4% by March 2016. In December 2015, the new offence of controlling or coercive behaviour also came into law, and our statistics show there were five prosecutions of this offence completed by the end of March 2016.

Katie Russell, for Rape Crisis England & Wales, said:

“Rape Crisis welcomes the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) annual Violence against Women & Girls report and the ongoing commitment to scrutiny and transparency it represents.

The gradual increase in the volume of referrals, charges, prosecutions and convictions reflects the growing number of survivors of child sexual abuse, rape and sexual assault who are willing to report to the police, and that some progress has been made towards improving responses to sexual violence and violence against women and girls.

At the same time, it’s clear there is still some way to go before all survivors of these types of crime receive the justice they want and deserve and there is no room for complacency.

Half of those who contact our specialist Rape Crisis services each year are adult survivors of child sexual abuse; today we call again for improvements in the collection and collation of data so that this significant group is properly represented in statistics such as these in future.  As long as offences are presented only to reflect the age of the victim at the time the offence took place and not at the time of reporting, adult survivors of child sexual abuse remain hidden within official figures.

Rape Crisis believes that all survivors of all forms of sexual violence deserve to be seen and heard and to have access to both criminal and social justice, including specialist support and advocacy services.  Today’s figures highlight the ongoing vital importance of long-term sustainable funding for such services.”

Find the press release from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), headline figures and full report on the CPS website here.

http://rapecrisis.org.uk/news/cps-prosecuting-and-convicting-more-cases-of-rape-domestic-a

September 16, 2016

15 September 2016 11:30 ~ The family courts are robbing survivors of their children: #ChildFirst goes to Parliament – Women’s Aid

Women’s Aid has secured a historic debate in Parliament for its Child First campaign, on the failure of family courts to protect children and survivors of domestic abuse.

The debate, on Thursday 15th September at 11:30am in the House of Commons, will be led by Angela Smith, the local MP of the Child First spokeswoman Claire Throssell. Claire’s two sons, Jack  and Paul, were murdered by their father – a known perpetrator of domestic abuse – in October 2014.

Despite Claire’s repeated warnings to the family courts and all agencies involved with the case that he presented a danger to the boys, the family courts granted her ex-husband unsafe, unsupervised contact with the boys. This gave him the opportunity to kill them; Jack and Paul were 12 and 9 at the time. Claire will be attending the debate to hear her story told in Parliament for the very first time.

MPs speaking at the debate include Jess Phillips, Sir Keir Starmer, Maria Miller, and Paul Scully, the MP of Ellie Butler. Ellie was murdered by her father Ben Butler after the family courts took the decision to remove Ellie from the care of her grandparents, and returned her to her abusive parents.

The debate will focus on three core issues:

  • Putting children’s safety back at the heart of all decisions made by family courts by implementing the legal framework that exists to protect them (Practice Direction 12J), and giving it the vocal backing of Government and senior judges. Failure to do this has led to 19 children in 10 years being killed by a parent who had previously committed domestic abuse.
  • An end to cross-examination of a survivor by their abuser in family courts. Survivors cannot advocate for their children’s safety effectively if being intimidated by their abuser. 1 in 4 survivors of domestic abuse surveyed by Women’s Aid were cross-examined by their abuser in the family court.
  • Protection measures, such as separate waiting areas, currently available in criminal courts, must also be made available in family courts. Women’s Aid research found that 55% of survivors of domestic abuse had no access to protection measures in family courts. Only 32% of survivors of domestic abuse had access to a separate waiting room in the family court to keep them safe from their abuser.

Polly Neate, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid, said:

“This debate is a crucial opportunity to urge the Government to ensure that there are no further avoidable child deaths as a result of unsafe child contact, to put children’s safety back at the heart of all family court decisions, and to make the family courts safer for all survivors of domestic abuse.

“We launched Child First alongside the report Nineteen Child Homicides, which uncovered the cases of 19 children from 12 families killed by their fathers – who were all known to several statutory agencies as perpetrators of domestic abuse – in circumstances relating to unsafe child contact. One child death is one too many – and all of the deaths of these 19 children were avoidable. The culture of ‘contact at all costs’ must end. The safety and wellbeing of the child must be paramount – not the desire of an abusive parent for contact. We hope this debate prompts the Government into urgent action.”

Part of a longer press release at https://www.womensaid.org.uk/family-courts-robbing-survivors-children-child-first-goes-parliament/

September 14, 2016