Rape survivors still being failed

Cath Elliott

Posted on February 28th, 2012

As if Brian Paddick’s revelation yesterday that he had been “asked to “water-down” a report critical of the Met’s handling of rape cases” wasn’t bad enough, now comes news that police forces up and down the country are still disproportionately no-criming rape cases in comparison to other crimes of violence:

“The study discloses that 2,131 reported rape offences were officially logged as “no crimes” in 2010-11 in England and Wales – nearly 12% of all recorded rape cases. It also shows there is still a wide variation in “no crime” rates between police forces, from 30% in Kent to 2.4% in Gloucestershire.

The inspectorates say that a rape that has been reported and then recorded as a crime should only be “no-crimed” if the victim states that it did not happen, and even then further verifiable information is needed to support this, “because our experience shows that victims may withdraw allegations because they cannot face the criminal justice process”.

I already pretty much covered this back in September when the BBC obtained the same no-crime figures for rape after submitting a Freedom of Information application, so have a read of that post – Disparities in Rape Crime Figures – for a more in depth analysis of what this all means.

Categories: angry? what me?, campaigning, crime, cynical? what me?, domestic violence, feminism, FFS!, misogyny, rape, sexism, the police, violence against women, you really couldn't make this shit up

The danger of cuts to violence against women services

Cath Elliott

Posted on February 17th, 2012

This is the text of a speech I delivered earlier today at UNISON’s National Women’s Conference. It’s on motion 7: ‘Women at risk – the danger of cuts to violence against women services.’

The statistics speak for themselves.

Almost half of all adult women in the UK have experienced domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking. Between 50 and 80,000 women are raped every year in this country. An estimated 70,000 women living in the UK have undergone female genital mutilation, and up to 7,000 girls remain at high risk of having it done to them. Thousands more women and girls are threatened with so-called honour crimes or forced marriage and, according to the UN, some 200 million women and girls are missing from the world today because of sex selective abortions and female infanticide.

Last year the Home Secretary Theresa May declared:

“No level of violence against women and girls is acceptable in modern Britain or anywhere else in the world. …As women and girls we have made great strides but we need to do more to ensure that women and future generations are not held back. My ambition is nothing less than ending violence against women and girls.”

And yet despite the government’s new found concern about the prevalence of violence against women; despite its avowed commitment to both preventing this violence and dealing better with the aftermath of the gender hate crimes committed against us, specialist by women for women services, set up with the express purpose of providing support for the survivors of these crimes, remain desperately underfunded, and a woman’s ability to access such services remains subject to a postcode lottery.

Categories: a bit of politics, campaigning, ConDems, domestic violence, feminism, FGM, rape, stalking, the cuts, trade unions, violence against women

Serendipity

Cath Elliott

Posted on February 2nd, 2012

No sooner had I stepped out of my front door earlier when this small strip of paper blew into my path:

(Click on the pic to make it bigger)

Honestly, I don’t know what they teach them in schools these days! (But if this is any indication, I wholeheartedly approve )

Categories: a bit of history, feminism, fun

“All the big guns”

Cath Elliott

Posted on January 31st, 2012

I know Bidisha’s already covered this, but I couldn’t let the all male line-up for Amnesty’s upcoming 50th anniversary Secret Policeman’s Ball pass without comment, especially in light of today’s report criticising the BBC’s Question Time and Mock the Week “for featuring “token women” on their panels.“

To grudgingly give them their due, at least Question Time and Mock the Week do feature some women, albeit women are grossly under-represented and tokenised on those and other panel shows. Amnesty on the other hand, “an international human rights organisation with more than three million supporters worldwide” (some of whom are no doubt women), doesn’t appear to have invited any women to take part in its “legendary” show.

Categories: angry? what me?, campaigning, cynical? what me?, feminism, FFS!, music, sexism, the boy's club, you couldn't make it up

Media sexism

Cath Elliott

Posted on January 25th, 2012

Not all media sexism is as overt and in your face as the examples given by women’s groups during their awesome testimony to the Leveson Inquiry yesterday. Media sexism, (or #mediasexism if you want to do a Twitter search for coverage of Tuesday’s morning’s hearing) isn’t always about Page 3 ‘girls’, victim blaming, sexual objectification or downright misogyny: often it’s a lot more subtle than that.

Take the erasure of women from the MSM for example. The way women are ignored or marginalised, treated as though we don’t exist or as though our issues are unimportant in the grand scale of things, that’s also media sexism.