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Police Me Too has been set up by a victim/survivor
Amplifying the voices of women and girls who were abused by police instead of protected.
Each and every one of us deserves to be heard.
So, let’s show every police force that it isn’t just ‘one bad apple’, but their culture.
We need structural and systemic changes to address the institutionalised misogyny and the closing of ranks.
We need it to change. Now.
See also:
Consultation description
The government will introduce a legislative ban on the practice of so-called conversion therapy. This consultation seeks views on proposals on how we plan to ban these practices, which particularly affect LGBT people. This consultation will be open for 6 weeks, closing on Friday 10 December at 11:45pm.
The consultation seeks views on a package of proposed measures that will apply to England and Wales. These include:
Once the consultation has closed, the responses will inform the final phase of work on the policy proposals. The Equality Hub will prepare draft legislation by spring 2022, which will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time allows.
We understand that engaging with this consultation may be difficult for people who have experienced or been affected by conversion therapy practices. For anyone who has been affected by issues covered by the consultation, please see the below support services:
Ways to respond
We encourage responses online wherever possible.
Please read the consultation document (also available as a print-ready PDF).
Then submit your responses online.
An accompanying Welsh translation and Easy Read document will follow shortly.
Please email ctconsultation@cabinetoffice.gov.uk if:
If you would like to respond by post, please mark your correspondence ‘Conversion Therapy Consultation’ and send to:
Cabinet Office – Government Equalities Office
Sanctuary Buildings
20 Great Smith Street
London SW1P 3BT
Other correspondence
If you have questions relating to the wider policies of the Equality Hub, please email geo.correspondence@geo.gov.uk.
Research
To better understand the nature and impact of conversion therapy practices in the UK, we have commissioned and undertaken qualitative and quantitative research. This research has now been published so that stakeholders and members of the public can view that information.
Read more and download documents at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/banning-conversion-therapy
The largest ever survey of women suffering severe pregnancy sickness (Hyperemesis Gravidarum), published in the journal Obstetric Medicine, has found that more than half of women considered termination (52.1%), and nearly 5% ended a pregnancy as a result of the condition. Over a quarter (25.5%) of the more than 5,000 women surveyed considered suicide, and nearly 7% regularly so.
Dr Caitlin Dean, Chairperson of Pregnancy Sickness Support said:
“This study demonstrates the scale of the problem with HG care in the UK. Too many women are receiving poor care and losing their much-wanted babies. We need greater awareness of the available treatments and more compassion in the way care is provided”
Clare Murphy, Chief Executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, BPAS, said:
“No woman should have to end a wanted pregnancy because she has been unable to access the care she needs. This is an important study which must raise awareness of the devastating consequences of severe pregnancy sickness which women are often expected just to put up with.
“We must move away from the mantra that ‘nothing is safe in pregnancy’ because not treating pregnant women is also harmful. Safe, effective medications are available, and women must be offered them.”
The study was developed as a collaboration between the BBC, Pregnancy Sickness Support, and researchers at Kings College, and is published online here.
A film screening of “Women Leaving Islam” and a panel discussion on Blasphemous Women and Equality.
On Saturday 20 November from 6-9pm, CEMB is screening “Women Leaving Islam” for the first time in London. After the film, there will be a panel discussion on Blasphemous Women and Equality. Speakers include Somali Ex-Muslim Voices Founder Halima Salat, CEMB Spokesperson Maryam Namazie, youtuber and Counsellor Mimzy Vidz, Youtuber Nuriyeh Khan, Writer and Southall Black Sisters Activist Rahila Gupta and Clinical Psychologist Savin Bapir-Tardy. The event is MCed by Sudanese activist Nahla Mahmoud.
Halima Salat
Kenyan-Somali living in the Netherlands. She is a multilingual poet and journalist focusing on gender based issues such as honour violence and FGM. She has many problems with Islam but the core problem is that she truly believes Islam is against a woman’s individual right to steer her own path. Halima is the founder of the online community; “Ex-Muslim Somali Voices” which focuses on the issues apostates from Somali communities face. She is featured in the film Women Leaving Islam.
https://twitter.com/halimasalat
Maryam Namazie
Iranian-born activist living in the UK. She is the Spokesperson of One Law for All and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain featured in a 2016 film called Islam’s Non-Believers and was a character in DV8 Physical Theatre’s Can We Talk About This?. She has been deemed ‘immoral and corrupt’ by the Islamic regime of Iran and ‘distressing and objectionable’ by TEDx Warwick. In his 2020 book ‘Leaving the Allah Delusion Behind: Atheism and Freethought in Islam,’ the author states, ‘If it were not for Maryam Namazie’s tireless efforts, I doubt if the ex-Muslim atheist movement as a whole would have had the success it is experiencing now.’ She has won numerous awards for her work, including the 2019 Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize; 2017 Henry H. Zumach Freedom From Religious Fundamentalism award; 2016 International Laicite Prize from the Comité Laïcité République and the inaugural National Secular Society’s Secularist of the Year Award 2005, amongst others.
https://twitter.com/MaryamNamazie
Mimzy Vidz
Ex-Muslim Youtuber who discusses issues that Muslims and non Muslims face. She is part of the movement to normalise ex Muslims and put an end to blasphemy and apostate scrutiny in Muslim communities and raise awareness of these problems. She went to a Muslim school most of her life in London. She was a very religious Muslim and involved in various Muslim organisations and communities before becoming an Atheist 2 years ago. She is featured in the CEMB film, Women Leaving Islam.
https://twitter.com/MimzyVidz
Nahla Mahmoud
An environment and human rights activist originally from Sudan. She works with a number of campaigns in the UK, including One Law for All and Secular Middle East and North Africa. She leads the Sudanese Humanists Group and is former Spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain.
https://twitter.com/nahlamamoud
Nuriyah Khan
British Pakistani aspiring lawyer and activist who mostly grew up between Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Nuriyah has a YouTube channel called Holy Humanist. Holy Humanist is a platform dedicated to exploring the dogma of Islam, human rights, freedom, oppression, and the surrounding socio-political issues, with a strong emphasis on women’s rights (or lack thereof!).
https://twitter.com/nuriyahk
Rahila Gupta
Journalist, writer, poet. Active with Southall Black Sisters, an advocacy and campaigning group for women escaping domestic violence. Her work, about immigration, violence and patriarchy, has appeared in The Guardian among other papers and magazines.
https://twitter.com/RahilaG
Savin Bapir-Tardy
Lecturer in Psychology at the University of West London. Bapir-Tardy conducted her doctoral research at City University into how traumatic events are experienced. She has worked with adolescents, adults and older adults in a variety of mental health settings. She worked for 8 years as a Counselling Psychologist at the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO) providing psychological therapy to women who have experienced “honour” based violence, forced marriage, domestic violence and female genital mutilation. Bapir-Tardy also provided training to professionals in mainstream mental health services on “honour” based violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation.
https://twitter.com/savinbapirtardy
Register online at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/blasphemous-women-tickets-181197575827
Key findings
The Government’s Female Offender Strategy contains the core strategic objective of having ‘fewer women in custody (especially on short-term sentences) and a greater proportion of women managed in the community successfully’. This report focuses on the cost of female imprisonment for two particularly vulnerable groups; mothers who are imprisoned and their children. However, maternal imprisonment also has a high cost for the taxpayers who fund the agencies charged with picking up the pieces in the longer term. To explain the wider impact of maternal imprisonment, it is necessary to take a ‘whole systems approach’, analysing how the criminal justice system responds to maternal imprisonment, identifying the impacts of existing responses not only on the life chances of imprisoned mothers and their children, but also the economic impact through potentially avoidable costs which accrue.
Our research found that a deep distrust of local authority social services, compounded by poor communication and information sharing, forms a significant barrier to engaging mothers with services which could help prevent them from offending and support prolonged desistance. Our research also suggests there is a significant cohort of mothers in the criminal justice system who have had children removed from their care. The specific journey of these mothers into and through the criminal justice system needs to be better understood and the underlying causes addressed.
Practitioners and policy makers now understand parental imprisonment as an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE). Maternal imprisonment has a far greater impact on children than paternal imprisonment, since mothers are more often the sole or primary carer.
We found that the effects of maternal imprisonment can be severe and long-lasting on children, leading to exclusion from school, increased vulnerability to exploitation, mental health issues and youth crime, ultimately leading to incarceration. Children are not routinely offered targeted support to deal with the acute trauma of separation from their mother which could reduce the impacts. The financial and social cost of this missed opportunity is significant. Our research shows that interventions with children affected by maternal imprisonment were costing the taxpayer as much as £265,008 per family when the cost of the mother’s custodial sentence is taken into consideration.
Current sentencing guidelines are designed to ensure judges and magistrates consider sole or primary carer status as a mitigating factor, yet our research also suggests that awareness of and application of these guidelines is low.
Ultimately, as many of the mothers we spoke to emphasised, it is children who bear the consequences of maternal imprisonment. It is vital that agencies come together with comprehensive, integrated strategies to mitigate the huge societal costs of sending mothers to prison.
The costs of maternal imprisonment on mothers, their children and on the exchequer cannot be addressed by one agency alone but must be the work of the whole system which it activates; from safer neighbourhood teams and schools to probation workers and social services.
Principles for reform
Our research points us towards three broad principles which should guide the response to mitigating the impact of maternal imprisonment on mothers, children and society as a whole.
Part of a longer press release at https://www.crestadvisory.com/post/report-counting-the-cost-of-maternal-imprisonment
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HERitage stall this Saturday 29th January at St Cuthbert's hall, Amble. Come along, see you there
5 years ago
RT @TynesideWH: Our very own white ribbon is now complete #16DaysOfAction https://t.co/0XFojhApjo
8 years ago