September 2021

 

The Women’s Equality Party has a goal to end Violence against Women and Girls, which is obviously a truly massive task.

The Richmond branch of WEP believes that huge amounts of outside help will be needed to achieve that.

And it would be extremely helpful if a good amount of that help came from the press and politicians – but so far that has failed to be the case.

We got excited – wrong word but I can’t find the right one…
We got excited for all the wrong reasons when big headlines were written, and huge promises were made after the murder of Sarah Everard on March 3rd this year.

The press ran the story for several weeks, the politicians – nationally and locally – were outraged and made big promises including looking at how - since men were committing the violence and murders - then possibly, men were they key to stopping it.

But in reality very little actually happened.

On April 27th, Julia James, a police community support officer, was murdered. It made press headlines again, but there was virtually no response from politicians.

I’m going to share some numbers and stats now – with permission from the originator Karen Ingala-smith. Karen is an academic and charity CEO who writes a blog called “Counting Dead Women”.

She and her team collate information about UK women who have been killed by men (or where men are the principal suspect in an ongoing enquiry).

 

When Sarah Everard was murdered she was the 28th woman on Karen’s list for 2021.

Julia James was the 52nd

Do you remember reading or seeing anything about the 24 women who were murdered in between?

And absolutely nothing changed.

 

As of the last update on August 19th the total for 2021 is 100. And there are around 20 more waiting for more details and confirmation.

So that’s an average of 3 murdered women per week this year.

At least 23 were murdered by their husband or partner, 8 by their sons and 2 by their grandsons.

And these women are not just statistics – each is a tragedy on a very personal level.

This is a social epidemic and an issue that should be covered by the press and tackled by the politicians every day – not just when there are headlines to be made and votes to be won.

Until then there will not be enough effort put into finding a solution. A solution which is so desperately needed.

Please join me in taking a minute to give our thoughts to those 100 + women, and their children, and their partners and their parents and their siblings and their friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you.

 

WE would like to ask you all to help us raise awareness around this issue in whatever way you can.

 

Follow Richmond WEP on Twitter and Facebook. Re-tweet us and re-post our posts.

 

Similarly follow Karen and Counting Dead Women. Re-tweet and re-post.

 

Write to your local MP and local councillor.

 

Be outraged and angry – ask them if they think more would happen if 3 men were being murdered by women each week.

 

Come and talk to us if you need any more information.

 

Please travel home safely, and if any of you are concerned about how safe you might be when you do get home then feel free to speak to one of the police officers we have with us this evening.

 

 

 

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