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 not know her, she did not know him.

In March 2021 – over 3 years ago now, Sarah Everard was in another part of London, also walking home. She was abducted by a stranger also, a man named Wayne Couzens, who used the fact of his police officer status as a false premise to get Sarah into the car, remove her from the safety of her surroundings, rape and murder her the same night. Sarah’s grief-stricken mother commented that Wayne Couzens had disposed of her beloved daughter ‘like a bundle of rubbish’.

If these two incidents, separated in time by some years, were unique and isolated events, one might assume that the perpetrators, the murderers, were somehow mad to commit these appalling acts of murder and that we cannot draw any conclusions about their attitude to women or the social and cultural context which generates such an attitude.

And we would be wrong in drawing that conclusion. We would be wrong because, as I will show in a moment, they are of course not isolated incidents. We would be wrong also because all the evidence shows that the significant majority of murders of women are committed not, as with the two I’ve mentioned, by a random stranger fuelled by hate of women in general – but in a domestic setting, women who are killed by someone known to them, sometimes very well – such as an intimate partner, relative or neighbour.

How can this be? Where does it start, this final act of murder? A couple of years ago / Feb 2022 our major Sadiq Khan spoke about the need for a cultural ‘shift ‘ in attitudes to violence against women and girls.

He said: the problem was not just violent men, but men who engage in sexist behaviour and who stand by silently when other men harass women.

Since then we have seen a range of media initiatives to raise awareness, and prompt men and women to consider what actions to take when they witness that kind of harassment. We have heard about the ‘Me Too’ campaign, a survivor-led global campaign by and for the survivors of sexual violence to highlight the pattern of behaviour and frequency of this kind of assault upon women by men.

We are constantly reminded of the power of the collective voice, of joining forces, of standing together. Things are happening – yet behind actions and intentions – yet is it enough? There is a very short answer to that question and you will not be surprised to hear that it is a resounding NO.

The point of the vigil is to read out the names of women killed by men each month, because it happens and continues to happen. And to ask some key questions, and think about how we all together – yes, we need to do this together so we can put our full collective power behind it, can call out VAAWG for what it is, and to ask and keep asking the tough questions, until the violence stops and the questions are no longer needed.

3 questions:

· what is happening? Around 100 women are killed by men every year, of whom over 70% - yes 70% - are shown to be killed by someone they know. And of the 100 women who die unnecessarily, over half of their lives are taken by a sexual partner or spouse.

· ( Source: Office of National Statistics, 2023: Women were more likely to be killed by someone they knew than men, for example, of the 100 domestic homicide victims in the year ending March 2023, 70 were women. 52% were killed by a sexual partner / spouse.)

That’s an average of 10 a month. Around 120 a year. Every year, since records began.

What else is happening? Each time a case of women reporting violence of any nature receives significant attention in the press, more women feel able to talk about their experience. In the 10 years from 2014 to 2024, reporting more than tripled. As with ‘Me Too’ campaign, a door opens and people feel more sure not only are they not alone, they will not be assumed to be mad or deluded, a trouble-maker – indeed, they may actually be listened to. Before events such as the ‘Me Too’ initiative, in a survey of why women don’t report rape, a shocking 40% spoke about the fear they would not be listened to or that the police would do nothing about it.

And of course we’re not just talking about a number here that is grimly predictable, that never seems to diminish, we’re talking about the lives of real women, every one of those ending before their time, every one of those names I will read out tonight will be someone who meant something to someone else, who will be loved and missed - someone’s daughter, someone’s spouse perhaps, sister maybe, granddaughter possibly, neighbour, lover, friend.

It’s also more than likely that, unless this is an issue you keep in mind all the time, you were not aware of these numbers at all. That is very sad but really not surprising. The women who died in March whose names I will read out are probably unknown to you because they might have made a column inch of two in their local newspaper, not a national press campaign. They were literally deemed not news - perhaps because domestic murders are not new, they have been happening for years, with appalling predictability. They have lost their shock value. They do not, it seems, have the ingredients of a story worth reporting at national level. Domestic violence and abuse stories are just not

interesting enough, it seems, too much ‘same old, same old’, lacking the glamour factor somehow, unlike the chilling stories of apparently unpredictable attacks and murders of women by random strangers in the street. Domestic violence: barely worth noting, apparently.

Or so it seems. But there are some journalists and politicians and campaigners who make sure we never turn away from this terrible, entirely preventable brute reality. That we never try to forget this goes on, and continues to go on, until we can find effective ways to prevent it for ever.

Professor Karen Inghala Smith, CEO of the NEA charity for the survivors of abuse, is one campaigner who publishes a blog which names the details of women murdered by men every month across the UK. The title is ‘Counting Dead Women’. That’s a title that doesn’t mess with any pretty packaging to deliver its truth.

Jess Phillips, MP reads a list annually of women killed by men. She spoke recently about the impact on her of calling out those names in the Commons - about going from shock the first time, to extreme sadness after she’d read the list a few years running, finally to weariness and a sense of resignation. Like Sadiq Khan, she calls for systematic changes, education to raise awareness, a seismic shift in attitude. Her words: ‘“I am tired of fighting for systematic change and being given table scraps. Never again do I want to hear a politician say that lessons will be learned from abject failure – it is not true. This list is no longer just a testament to these women’s lives, it is a testament to our collective failure.”

I’ll read the list now, and invite you to think about what the women mentioned have in common. Because at first sight, its’ frankly not a lot. They are different ages, from different places, different social backgrounds, they were killed in different ways. I won’t read out all those details.

Here’s what the majority will have in common.

In very many of these cases, the murdered women will have endured a long history of domestic violence which became their ‘normality’, stripping them of confidence, self-esteem, the money and the wherewithal to leave. In a lot of cases, women stay with their partner to protect their children from hardship, because they are frightened to leave, or because they have been worn down by the constant messaging that they deserve the treatment they are receiving– and their mental health, confidence, and ability to cope with emotional, mental and physical brutality and to protect themselves is in tatters. Many, and especially those who have lived with financial control and abuse, do not have the economic means to provide for themselves and their children independently, even if they have the mental resilience to make that move away. In those stories, the murder is just a final violent act in a long chain of violence.

And of course, and most obviously – the second point they have in common is that they have all been murdered by a man, and a man known to them. Not a random stranger. Not

an isolated act of uncontrolled hate. The end point of a long story of suffering, often by a man they once liked or even loved.

 

So we’re going to take a moment to honour them now and read their names:

 

3 March 2024: Christine Bauld, 55, was found seriously injured at her home in Leicestershire. Her son, Gregor Bauld, 22, has been charged with murder.

29 March 2024: Jillian Hughes, 57, from Merseyside died after an incident outside a hotel in the Isle of Man. John Meadows, 53, also from Merseyside, has been charged with manslaughter.

30 March 2024: Francis Dwyer, 48, was found at a property in Tile Cross, West Midlands. Anthony Hoey, 49, has been charged with murder.

6 April 2024: 27-year-old Kulsama Akter, was fatally stabbed while pushing her baby in a pram in broad daylight on a Saturday afternoon. Habibur Masum, 25, is wanted by the police over the attack. He was known to the victim but police have not confirmed their relationship.

 

6 April 2024: 25-year-old Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche was found dead in a car in Hackney. Gogoa Tape, 27, of Hackney, has been arrested and charged with murder.

 

ALSO

Alisha Apostoloff-Boyarin, 24, was reported missing from Tameside on 2 February 2022. David Alex Taylor, 61, has recently been charged with her murder.

Melissa Eastick, 36, died at a home in Northumbria, after suffering serious injuries, on 17 October 2023. Stephen Todd, 41, has now been charged with her murder.

 

 

A sad, sickening list. It’s relentless. Every month. The same numbers, the same range of ages, range of places, means of murder.

It’s not news, because literally it’s not new. It keeps on happening.

It would be so easy to give up hope of change, but we must not, we cannot.

Why is it happening? The importance of asking that question is because, every time we ask it, a deathly hush falls. Because the answer can only be an appallingly sad one. But still we have to keep asking it, because until we understand what are the factors that drive men to abuse and murder women, we will be limited in our approach to preventing it.

And let’s not jump to any easy conclusions, or fall back on simple criminal or psychological stereotypes, because that just keeps the myths in place, and keeps prevention measures superficial, keeps the distance between us. Let’s look for some ideas that tackle the issue at its root. Let’s name it, and ask the tough questions that highlight how commonplace domestic violence is, and that even where it does not end in murder, it wrecks lives for those who experience it physically, mentally, emotionally.

Last question: what can we do about it?

Just last month Jess Phillips MP called the government out on this:

Before reading the list of names of more than 100 women, Ms Phillips said at least half of the lives lost could have been saved.

She said: “I, however, have grown weary of this task. While it is an honour to do it, every year when I meet the families, many of whom are with us today, I am reminded of why I do this.

“I am weary and tired of this list today.

“The first year I did it I felt overwhelmed, and then I grew used to it, and now I have grown so sad that every year the same cases of systems failures, of prison recalls not followed up, of children’s services and family court decisions that left women at risk, of the fact that not every single police force in our country has a specific women’s safety unit, let alone the fact that none of them do.”

She added:

“We all have a role, it’s not just the role of Government to do this, it’s the role of all agencies to do this, from the police to the courts to others as well to absolutely make sure that femicide is taken seriously and it is dealt with when people come forward to share their stories.”

Politicians like Jess Phillips and campaigners like Professor Karen Inghala-Smith remind us what we can do as individuals.

We can keep an eye on it; call it out when you see it. Learn how to be a bystander who does not just stand by when violence of any kind happens in front of us, frozen by embarrassment or fear.

Keep talking about it. It’s painful, isn’t it. But we must talk beyond a whisper, we must explode the myths and stereotypes that helps us to package it up as ‘sad, but nothing to do with me’, that enable perpetrators of violence and those who collude with them to try to keep it hidden away.

Write about it.

Join us.

Together we can do this.

 

Thank you for being here and please do join us again next month – on Monday 6^th May.