EVAW Bulletin
Seasons Greetings - December bulletin
In a year in which Vincent Tabak was convicted of the murder of Joanna Yeates, Charlotte Church told the Leveson Inquiry of The Sun's countdown clock to her 16th birthday, and Facebook refused to take down ‘rape’ pages, our campaign for a world free from abuse and exploitation of women and girls was more important than ever before.
We have produced authoritative reports and campaigns, met key politicians (including Nick Clegg, Theresa May, Ed Miliband and Yvette Cooper), spoken at national and grassroots events, and used traditional and new media to achieve change. With your support we can do even more next year so please make a donation, however small. Your support is hugely appreciated.
It’s been a mixed year..
We welcomed 3-year funding for victims of sexual violence, a teenage relationship abuse campaign as well as a government commitment to ensuring support for women in an abusive relationship with no recourse to public funds. Following publication of the violence against women and girls strategy in 2010, an action plan published in March this year provides a framework for drawing together work across government departments. EVAW members in Wales scored a critical success with the announcement of a legal requirement on councils to address violence against women in a coordinated way, a step that more English councils have taken this year also. Internationally, we welcomed the new UN Women with focus on violence against women and girls.
However, there have been some disappointing and retrograde steps: The closure of the Women’s National Commission has meant the loss of an important forum for women’s voices to reach those in power and the government has sent mixed signals on its commitment to equality; the Public Sector Equality Duty regulations are now less clear for public bodies though this remains a crucial tool for ensuring public bodies address all forms of violence against women and girls; the Red Tape Challenge website confused basic equality standards with bureaucracy; and our members have worked tirelessly to show how proposed reforms on legal aid and welfare benefits, alongside public sector spending cuts pose a real risk to women’s safety and support.
There are widespread concerns that fragmented policies risk undermining good progress. For example, education policies still fail to adequately address girls’ safety, particularly ethnic minority communities girls. Recent actions to tackle sexual exploitation and sexualisation are a welcome first step but why do they not include work with young people in schools or link properly to work on violence against women? The Gang and Youth Violence work following the summer riots should embed action to tackle sexual violence and harmful notions of masculinity throughout but fail to adequately make these connections at present . The separation of trafficking from other forms of violence and prostitution being removed altogether from this agenda will mean that policies are far less effective. And experts recently advised the Government to ensure that new Personal Social Health and Economic (PSHE) education guidance for schools addresses the breadth of issues of violence and abuse as well as gender stereotyping and this should be made statutory. In a letter to EVAW and other women's organisations, the PM says young people should receive high quality SRE. So why are we still leaving it to chance whether this happens?
Along with many others, we urge the UK to stop dithering and sign the Istanbul convention on violence against women, particularly as it now chairs the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers!
Our campaign for a safer world.....
So we continue to use a variety of ways to campaign for change. Our authoritative report on prevention, A Different World is Possible and online resource profiling 15 innovative projects, were launched at Dunraven School in South London. In these, we call for a 'whole school approach' to addressing issues such as sexual bullying and harassment and forced marriage, and for Michael Gove to take a lead on ensuring every school deals with these issues. We also want to see central and local government develop ongoing campaigns to tackle myths and stereotypes around violence (such as victim-blaming) that are all too common still. And it is critical that schools link to specialist women's services so that young people have the support they need. Help us in our campaign and take action.
We launched our short, funny viral, We Are Man, which tackled issues such as rape jokes, sexual harassment and the role of the bystander – all in 90 seconds! This was produced by award winning agency Kream and has had almost 9,000 hits on Youtube. Our work has been referenced in numerous articles throughout the year - a selection are BBC, ePolitix, Huffington Post, Guardian
With one year to go until the Olympics opening ceremony in July, we published a report looking at the connections between sport and violence against women and called for urgent action by Lord Coe, Olympics organisers LOCOG, the GLA, police, central and local government. We want to ensure that the huge influx of athletes, entourage and visitors does not bring an increase in sexual exploitation or other violence against women and that women’s safety is at the heart of the Games’ legacy. Lord Coe wrote to EVAW promising to put information on the law on domestic violence, rape and prostitution in athletes’ packs, and made further commitments at the Greater London Assembly on 19th October. The GLA is training the London Ambassadors to know how to address these issues and some local authorities in and around London are taking action also. We have begun our campaign to ensure all candidates for the London Mayor (elections in May 2012) prioritise women’s safety in London, and continue to fund Rape Crisis provision in London and resource and enhance the pan-london violence against women strategy, with a real focus on prevention.
Our influence and profile….
Our reach and influence has grown significantly and, in addition to meetings with Ministers, politicians and civil servants, we attended a star-studded International Women's Day reception at Number 10 Downing Street where we met the PM David Cameron, Chancellor George Osborne and rubbed shoulders with Barbara Windsor and Tracy Emin. In May we were mentioned in Prime Minister's Questions and our work has been referenced in parliamentary questions and debates throughout the year, including a key debate on the critical role of schools, amongst others, in preventing violence against women and girls by Caroline Lucas MP. In the Autumn we had a very busy conference season where we discussed concerns about tackling attitudes in schools, sexual exploitation, women’s safety and the Olympics with Ministers, Shadows and other politicians.
We have used both traditional and new media to get our message across including an appearance on Sky about Justice Secretary Ken Clarke’s comments on rape, and interviews on Woman’s Hour and BBC’s Politics Show about the role of schools in tackling sexual harassment and bullying and changing attitudes and behaviours to violence among young people. We also appeared on BBC Breakfast in the wake of Vincent Tabak's conviction to discuss how to prevent male violence. We are active on Twitter and were named by Pixel Project as one of the top 16 violence against women organisations to follow – you can join the discussion here
. Getting our message out….
We have spoken at events around the country including appearing on a panel about crime with Shadow Women and Equality Minister Yvette Cooper and Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan at the Labour People's Policy Conference in Nottingham. Our Co-Chair Professor Liz Kelly was a keynote speaker at the Rise conference, and Co-Chair Marai Larasi and Director Holly Dustin spoke at the Survivors Network conferences to mark 25th November International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. We ran a workshop at the Women’s Health and Equality Consortium and spoke on a panel after a performance of Hurried Steps. Our packed workshop at FEM11 showed the groundswell of opinion that strong action is needed to tackle misogyny in the media, music videos and social networking sites.
Nominations and awards…..
We were proud to be nominated for the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize and congratulations go to EVAW Board members Janet Veitch, Marai Larasi and Rape Crisis E and W chair Lee Eggleston for their honours this year, as well as to Board member Dr Aisha Gill for Asian Women of Achievement award.
Thank you for your support….
We are hugely grateful to all staff, board members, members and supporters we have worked with this year, and of course to our funders Comic Relief, Trust for London, Amnesty International UK as well as individual donors.
We carry out our work on minimal resources and desperately need funding to continue to achieve change. If your wish is for a safer and more equal world for women and girls please support with a donation however big or small.
See you in the new year!
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