Closed. The boat sank, the sharks won.

We mustered and we waited.

 

It took ages to get going but while we waited the numbers and noise just grew and grew.

We were about in the middle and it was HUGE!

There were rather a lot of women, marching, singing, shouting and generally being very very obvious through central London, which we brought to a complete standstill and we clearly made for excellent pictures….

We blocked roads and brought everything to a complete standstill for hours.

 

The roads were closed.

 

We took up loads of police time!

 

Several days later we reached the rally… Well it felt like several days, it was a couple of hours of stop start walking, shouting and banner waving and I still hurt!

 

But you know what? I reckon I’ll be there again next time, possibly sooner if I can at other marches and rallies. 

This blog post has been brought to you by SharkBait and HUGE thanks are owed to fellow bloggers Witchy Woo; RMott and Stormy along with the other fantastic women I met, bumped into, hugged and was deafened by.

More than 100 local councils across the UK are being threatened with legal action for failing to provide specialist support for victims of sexual violence but the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who are bringing the action, have been called "irresponsible" by the LGA (Local Government Association)

Chair of the Equality Commission, Trevor Phillips says,

"In many parts of the country services for women who have experienced violence are chronically under-funded or simply do not exist.

"Women shouldn’t be subjected to this postcode lottery… for those councils who continue to ignore the dire need to shore up services and plug the gaps we have a stark reminder: the commission is ready and willing to use its enforcement powers."

Every year in Britain, three million women will become victims of rape or another form of sexual violence and the support for them has to be specialist and immediately available for those women to stand any chance of recovery. But the funding for and provision of suitable support services, such as Rape Crisis centres, is woefully inadequate and shockingly patchy. 

Research indicates that the best levels of provision per head is to be found in Bradford, while the lowest level is across the south east of England. Glasgow has the best provision found in the whole if Britain, and that is attributed to the fact that Glasgow officials have made Women’s safety a top priority. 

Where do you live?

 

Half Rape Crisis centres face closure threat

 

Its centres are the only source of support for the thousands of
victims who experience sexual violence in the UK every year, however
Rape Crisis is in the middle of its very own crisis, due to a severe
shortage of funding, according to a new survey by the organisation.

In a country where the conviction rate for rape stands at
a woeful 5.3%, as many as half the centres - which provide a crucial
support service for women with recent and historic experience of rape
and sexual assault - are facing closure.

Why is this still an issue? This is from an article in the Guardian in March 2008 - but it’s a never ending problem. (The cat pic is not from the Guardian, but from Lolcatz, with my caption.) 

What’s bugging me is that I’ve been hearing the same thing for year after year, both in the news and from people who work in Rape Crisis. Here in the UK we’ve gone from 68 centres in 1984 to 38 in 2008. Now, with a conviction rate of 5.3% of only 10% reported rape, as a country we are clearly sending a powerful message aren’t we. Don’t bother reporting it if you are unlucky enough to be raped, as there’s no support for you and even if you happen to find a Rape Crisis centre still open near you then the chances are it’ll only be available for limited hours and you’ll never see your rapist convicted anyway. It completely devalues the experience and life of a raped woman, denies her the healing and support she needs.

Sitting here shaking my head in disbelief at our national inhumanity. 

It is an unfortunate fact that rape and other forms of sexual violence are being used as a weapon of war in order to humiliate, punish, control, inflict terror and displace women and their communities. These rapes and other sexual violence amount to serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Thanks Sparkle. And thanks Simply Wondered.

Women and children are 80% of refugees and displaced people worldwide. International courts have recognized that rape is routinely used as a weapon of war (*1) and an estimated 50% of women seeking asylum in the UK are rape survivors (*2). Yet the UN Convention on Refugees which defines who is entitled to protection does not recognise the specific persecution of women. Each woman must battle against institutional sexism, and institutional racism if she is a woman of colour, forced to show how her case relates to the Convention.

Gender Guidelines, provided to the Home Office (*3) and immigration judges in the UK (*4) acknowledge how hard it may be for women to speak about rape, and give practical guidance about how to ensure women have a fair hearing. But officials have no statutory obligation to implement the Guidelines, and rape survivors seeking asylum are treated with disbelief and even hostility. Case law and international precedents are rarely referred to and frequently flouted. And while victims of torture are considered “vulnerable” people who should not be detained, many are detained, including rape survivors.

Even when women are believed, rape can be dismissed as “simple lust” or “random acts” by “unruly officers”, or women are told it is safe to live somewhere else in the country they fled – with no means of survival, except begging or prostitution.

Women are denied any support or even legal representation. As a result, many cases are closed and women fight for years to get justice. Trafficked women who escaped forced prostitution or other bonded labour, mothers of children conceived as a result of rape, under-age girls and other rape survivors, are left destitute and detained. Most are ultimately removed.

Sign the petition here.  Please, your voice is needed here, make your mark and make it count.

Two information centres which help victims of domestic violence are under threat because of a lack of funding, a charity has warned.

This is the centres at Colwyn and Aberconwy, but the location isn’t as important as the threat and the scale of this. 

Cheryl Dixon from Aberconwy’s Women’s Aid said the charity desperately needed more funds to pay an outreach worker to work with women and their children.

"The outreach worker is currently employed 10 hours a week, and that is not enough," Ms Dixon said.

Hang on, TEN hours? A week?  **speechless and spluttering in apoplectic rage**

"The refuge itself is paid for by the government, and that money is ring-fenced, although it does not go up with inflation,"

Why the hell not?  Inflation means costs go up, wage bills go up, utilities and services cost more, and this pot of cash isn’t linked to inflation???

Government reaction?

"Welsh Women’s Aid receives funding of over £1m per year from the domestic abuse budget."

Hey, Un-named Spokesman (yeah, man, not spokesperson…. *bangs head on desk*) You know something? £1 million won’t build us a big enough boat, it won’t really make enough of a difference. Funding rescue projects acknowledges there is a Domestic Violence problem and it does help a lot of women, but not everyone. But what is actually accomplished by even having a Domestic Abuse budget? Isn’t it saying that Domestic Violence is an accepted part of life but here’s a way to escape, maybe, if the funding supplies a space at the time you might need it.

Isn’t it just saying the water will keep on rising anyway and we can’t change it, but here are some sand bags? Is this not a "Take 2 aspirin and go away" approach to a serious issue?

Don’t get me wrong, the funding is needed and more than ever. But, perhaps a proper look at the root causes of domestic violence and the subjugation and dehumanisation of women is needed too? While we’re busy putting a little plaster on this gaping wound, we’re not making the changes desperately needed to stop the harm in the first place.

I’m back. Did you notice?

A rape victim who was told her compensation would be cut because she had been drinking before the attack has had the decision overturned.

BBC NEWS | UK | Rape compensation cut overturned

But her lawyer successfully argued it was wrong to regard alcohol consumption as a contributing factor in rape cases. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority acknowledged its rules had been applied wrongly in 14 other cases.

14 acknowledged? How many not appealed? How many not heard?  

The woman, whose attacker has never been caught, complained to the Metropolitan Police about the way her case was investigated.

Another one not caught, not investigated, not convicted. She had just cause for complaint it seems as officers were disciplined over it. But still the rapist walks free and somewhere a mother, sister, girlfriend or wife can say "Not my bloke, he wouldn’t." But he might, it could be him. We can’t know, he was never caught, never convicted, but someone did it, some man raped and got away with it.

It’s like sharks. I like sharks, they are stunning beautiful fish in the wild but they happen to be predatory and are, as a result, deserving of our respect and wariness. Some may kill humans, most do not. But how to tell the human eaters from the fish eaters? Certain media imagery (see youtube on the right) does exaggerate our fears and as a result shark species are in decline. But back to the analogy - not all sharks will harm people but some might and all are capable - so do we fear, respect them all as a precaution?