Posts

April 2024

  Ending Violence against women and girls: No more ‘table scraps’ - systemic change is needed Welcome. We are the women’s equality party and we are standing here tonight to honour the names of women and girls, all women and girls, everywhere, who have been subject to violence at the hands of men. We meet here usually with members of the Lib Dem councillors who have been running the ‘white ribbon campaign’ to remind us of the reality of violence against women and girls, and to do everything in our collective power to expose it and draw it to an end. Thank you for joining us, and if you were wandering past and wondered what we were doing here, then thank you for stopping and listening in. We’ve been meeting here by the Amelie de la Grange memorial bench for a couple of years now. Amelie, as you may recall, was a French exchange student walking home one night. She was murdered by a stranger, a man called Levi Bellfield who followed her across Twickenham Green and killed her. He did no
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March 2024

  Hello and welcome to our March vigil. We meet on the 1 st Monday of each month to highlight the issue of male violence against women and girls, and to honour the women killed by men. We’ve been doing this since September 2021 when we realised that just 6 months after Sarah Everard was murdered by Wayne Couzens - when big headlines were written, and huge political promises were made - more than 50 other women had been murdered by men and only one of those had made national headlines, and nothing had changed… And still nothing has changed. We gather our information from the same source that MP Jess Phillips uses – a charity called the Femicide Census. Let me stress that – a charity, not a government department or a civil servant, officially this data doesn’t exist.   For the past nine years, Phillips has read a list of women killed by men or where a man is the principal suspect in the UK, and she read the latest list last week. She described the task as an honour but sai
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February 2024

Hello and welcome to our February vigil. We meet on the 1 st Monday of each month to highlight the issue of male violence against women and girls, and to honour the women killed by men.   This month we’re delighted to also be supporting Rhi and Michael’s proposal that the path across the Green should have permanent lighting added, to mark the 20th anniversary of Amelie Delagrange's murder, and to make the path safer to use. In fact, it was investigated 20 years ago when Amelie was tragically murdered on the Green but, at the time, it was rejected. That needs to change… The Council often mentions that they strive to make the Borough safer for Women by improving the street lighting. Surely, they should be improving the lighting of paths for the same reason?   Anything and everything must be done to improve Women’s safety and cut the number of VAWG crimes in the Borough. In case we haven’t bored you before, Violence Against Women and Girls is the no. 1 crime in Richmond B
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January 2024

  Happy New Year. And I’m happy to be able to start the 2024 with some reasonably good news – only 100 women were reported as having been known or suspected to have been killed by men in 2023. Yay!! That’s only about 2 every week. Yay!! Only one every 3 or 4 days… Yay!! That’s 8 less than last year…  let’s all go home and celebrate a job well done!   Or is it? Sadly this number will inevitably increase beyond 100, sadly even in the next few days - there is a lag in the reporting over the Bank Holidays and weekends since then. And whilst it would be nice to celebrate a nice round number each year – it’s just as important to look at the bigger picture. The annual average since the end of 2009 is 140 women killed by men every year and that’s an average of two women 5 days. I want to again credit the source of this data and take a few words from their end-of-year report. Counting Dead Women monitors the media and collates reports of women suspected to have
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December 2023

Hello and thank you for joining us on this 10 th day of the 16 Days of Action Against Gender Based Violence. That’s not just something that we have made up locally here in Richmond, it’s an international campaign that runs every year from  November 25 th - the United Nations Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women - to  December 10 th - International Human Rights Day. And it’s right that this issue should be being tackled and talked about on a national and international level, and not just once a month here on Twickenham Green. This international campaign encourages awareness of - and action against - all forms of  violence against women and girls  including rape and sexual assault; domestic abuse; child sexual abuse; child sexual exploitation; sexual harassment; stalking; female genital mutilation; forced marriage; child marriage; sex trafficking; pornography; prostitution; and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation. And it’s important to take a moment t
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November 2023

  So the reason for attending this Vigil every month is to name, remember & pay respects to the victims of Violence Against Women & Girls. This information usually comes from Karen Ingala Smith who publishes the list of names but the list hasn’t been updated for October as yet. It is my sincere wish that there are no names to announce, but sadly the list is usually around the 10 – 12 mark. The Women who have been killed this month by men or where a man is the principal suspect I have got from Twitter, there are 4   victims as follows; 9 th Oct 2023 – Deborah Boulter, 53, was found dead at a home in Nottingham. A murder investigation has been launched into her death. Officers also found the body of a man David Boulter aged 60mat the same address. Police are not looking for anyone else. 23 rd Oct 2023 – An unnamed woman of 60 was seriously injured at a house in Leeds & later passed away that evening. A boy of 17 has been charged with murder. 25 th Oct 2023 – Denise
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