Response to “Women’s refuges told they must admit men”, The Observer Sunday 5th April

We write to express our serious concern that some local authorities still misunderstand and misinterpret the Gender Equality Duty: the most important piece of equality legislation for women in Britain since the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975 (“Women’s refuges told they must admit men”, Sunday 5th April).

The Gender Equality Duty requires public bodies, including councils and government departments, to take steps to eliminate discrimination and promote equality between women and men. It is intended to ensure that the needs of women and men are met in an appropriate and proportionate manner, not through a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Women are far more likely to experience rape, domestic violence, forced marriage and other forms of gender-based violence. Single sex services remain lawful and legitimate if they meet specific and identified needs, such as addressing these issues.

Quite simply, men are not subjected to the same dangers and do not have the same needs. Indeed, as stated by the Solicitor General to Parliament in May 2008, not only does the Duty not mean an end to women-only services, the government positively encourages public bodies to be proactive in tackling violence against women through these services. Single sex services are completely lawful and legitimate if they meet specific and identified needs. They do not breach any equality laws; in fact, specific guidance is provided in the Gender Equality Duty to support such services.
Nevertheless, problems remain and in July 2008, the UN Committee to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) called upon the Government to “ensure that the Gender Equality Duty is interpreted and applied properly so that women-only services and other activities of women’s organisations are not negatively affected”.
The Government and Local Authorities surely must adhere to this mandate from the UN, or risk finding themselves in breach of international and domestic equality legislation.

Signed by:
Professor Liz Kelly, Chair, End Violence Against Women Campaign (EVAW)
Holly Dustin, Campaign Manager, (EVAW)
Vivienne Hayes, Director, Women’s Resource Centre
IMKAAN
Newham Asian Women’s Project
Southall Black Sisters
Women's Aid
Dr Hilary Abrahams, Research Fellow, Violence against Women Group School for Policy Studies University of Bristol
Jo Aldridge, Loughborough University
Julie Chalder-Mills, Sheffiled University
Catherine Donovan PhD, Reader in Sociology, University of Sunderland
Dr Geetanjali Gangoli, Violence against Women Group School for Policy Studies University of Bristol
Dr Aisha Gill, Criminologist, Roehampton University/Newham Asian Women’s Project
Nicola Harwin CBE, Chief Executive, Women's Aid
Ms Nancy Lombard, Lecturer in Sociology Edinburgh Napier University
Professor Vanessa Munro, School of Law University of Nottingham
Dr Nicole Westmarland, School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University
Dr Sue Griffiths, Senior Researcher, University of Sunderland
Dr Terry Gillespie, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Nottingham Trent University
Nesta Lloyd – Jones, Welsh Women's Aid
Dr Ellen Malos, Senior University Research Fellow, School for Policy Studies
University of Bristol
Dr Maggie O'Neill, Loughborough University
MACSAS - Minister & Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors
Professor Jill Radford, University of Teeside
Professor Paula Nicolson, Royal Holloway, University of London,
Carol Rivas, Research Fellow, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry
Dr Cathy Roberts
Ruth Swirsky, Principal Lecturer in Sociology, University of Westminster
Jo Todd, Chief Executive Officer, Respect
Dr Nicole Westmarland, School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University
Karen Bailey, Greater London Domestic Violence Project

CPS to apologise to family of woman murdered by abusive husband

Justice in the eyes of those who were close to Sabina Akhtar will not be fully realised if lessons are not learnt from this tragic case. Those who handled the case at the CPS must be held accountable for failing to protect young women like Sabina. We need to understand why it was concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge her husband who, after release from prison, breached his bail conditions and murdered his wife a few days later. A public inquiry is imperative and the IPCC should not procrastinate in ensuring the family get the answers they deserve. In the meantime, how many times do such cases of violence need to be reported to get a response?

This case shows that, despite repeated attacks from her husband (26 in all), violence against black and minority-ethnic women is not seen as a serious crime requiring a policy of deterrence and, concomitantly, harsh punishment for offenders. Despite the fact that there have been national guidelines introduced by the CPS in preventing violence against women, and also training for those who handle such cases, women are still being failed and the issue of victim credibility questioned. In other cases related to BME women, public confidence and trust in the system will not grow, and lessons not be learnt, unless criminal justice agencies accept culpability when they make mistakes and act to rectify them. This is essential in order to bring real change in the efforts to save the lives of vulnerable women. In the case of Sabina Akhtar, it will come too late…

Dr Aisha Gill
Chair of NAWP
a.gill@roehampton.ac.uk

Max Mosley and the campaign on privacy laws

Having successfully sued the News of the World over allegations that his use of prostitutes for sado-masochistic sex involved Nazi undertones, Max Mosley, motor sport boss, has begun a campaign to promote further laws on privacy. The BBC quote Max Mosley as saying, "I think most people recognise there are some human activities that people prefer to do in private...With sex, it would in my opinion be very, very rare that the public have any need-to-know basis for their interest whatsoever." That Mosley did engage five prostitutes for sex is undisputed. The issue which Mosley successfully fought on was one of the defamatory nature of being associated with Nazism. Given the strong links between prostitution and trafficking and violence against women, this blog argues that any man who engages prostitutes waives his right of privacy for his sexual activity. It is strongly in the public interest for all who support an end to violence against women to know which men in public life continue to be involved in a trade that exploits women in this way. We are entitled to continue to view Max Mosley as morally reprehensible in this regard.

Abuse survivor

A Charter of Rights for women seeking asylum

Shawna Spoor, Refugee Women's Resource Project



The UK government has established a forced marriage unit to save British citizens facing forced marriage abroad. Rape, domestic violence and honour crimes have all seen gender-sensitive practices develop around their handling in the criminal justice system. But a woman entering the United Kingdom seeking asylum from similar practices and crimes at home faces a far less gender-sensitive and understanding environment. Women seeking asylum are often doing so from a truly unique perspective; fleeing problems which men and often women from different cultural backgrounds would never face; female genital mutilation, honour killing, or forced marriage. Because of these and many other issues facing women seeking asylum the Refugee Women’s Resource Project at Asylum Aid, in consultation with a number of specialist organisations in the refugee, women’s and human rights sectors, has produced a Charter of rights of women seeking asylum.



Asylum Aid believes that the UK Border Agency could learn lessons from the criminal justice system and respond to women’s cases with similar standards. The women’s asylum charter covers all aspects of the end-to-end asylum process: the asylum determination system, accommodation, welfare, detention and removal. Ensuring fair treatment for women who are claiming asylum means that the Refugee Convention needs to be interpreted in a gender sensitive way. Actions suggested in the Charter include that the UK Border Agency should undertake gender impact assessments in relation to all asylum policies, train their staff to improve the quality of decision-making in relation to women’s claims and end the detention of families with children.

Since the Home Office incorporated its Asylum Policy Instruction on gender issues in the asylum claim in March 2004, the UK Border Agency has made some further progress but initiatives have tended to be piecemeal suggesting a failure to recognise gender as an underlying factor fundamental to creating a fair system. In addition there is, too often, a disconnection between the policy and the operational parts of the UK Border Agency, particularly on gender issues.


A multi-layered strategy is being developed to promote the Charter. This includes using the Charter as the basis for discussions with the UK Border Agency through formal stakeholders meetings and informal negotiations, setting up a Google group to provide a network for feedback between people working on the actions suggested in the Charter and holding a series of workshops to discuss with practitioners how to cooperate on promoting these issues. Thus organisations are being asked to endorse the Charter and, in doing so, commit themselves to promoting those actions which are within their sphere of influence (eg an NGO working for detained asylum seekers would promote the actions to do with detention).

The Charter has already been endorsed by 20 organisations including: Amnesty International UK, Bail for Immigration Detainees, End Violence Against Women Campaign, Fawcett Society, Liberty, Refugee Action, Refugee Council, Refugee Women’s Association. and Rights of Women. For your organisation to endorse the Charter or to join the Google group, please go to www.asylumaid.org.uk

IPCC: Met 'could have done more' to save Banaz

IPCC Investigation determines that the MPS “could have done more” to prevent the murder of Banaz Mahmod
Dr Aisha Gill



It took the murder of Banaz Mahmod to expose, yet again, how often the police service fails to protect young women (IPCC Inquiry, 2008; Britten, 2008) in minority communities in the UK – women who face violence perpetrated by their families in the name of so-called ‘honour’, a concept used to justify heinous acts of dishonourable violence (Gill, 2008). Banaz’s case highlights that this horrific problem still has not been properly addressed, is under-investigated (Brady, 2008), and is under-resourced in terms of the specialist provision that the women can seek out to protect themselves if they do not receive support from the police (Gill & Banga, 2008).



Cry for help
Honour-based violence is not a hypothetical issue affecting remote population groups; it is immediate and brutal, ruining or even ending the lives of vulnerable women in the UK. Banaz was one victim of many, but one of the things that makes her case unusual was the extended nature of her ordeal (Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), 2007). Enraged by her audacity at breaking up her own troublesome marriage and by her decision to fall in love with an Iranian Kurd, Banaz’s father held a family meeting, at which – at the insistence of her uncle – it was decided that her punishment would be death. Her father actually made one attempt to kill her before her eventual murder on New Year’s Eve 2005. He forced her to drink alcohol and tried to subdue her before the assault. However, realising the danger she was in, Banaz managed to break a window and escape, cutting herself badly in the process. She found a telephone and made a frantic call for help to the police, who played down her distress as either an attention-seeking ploy or the consequence of a private family matter. Her cry for help was dismissed by a female police officer as ‘dramatic and calculating’ – this officer later admitted that she had made a “dreadful mistake” (Barton and Wright, 2007).

The officers who attended the scene and accompanied Banaz to hospital did not believe her story, and even considered charging her with criminal damage for breaking a window while making her escape. Her plight forced her to record a telephone video message on her boyfriend’s mobile phone, telling of her ordeal after she had been unable to persuade the police of the threat to her life; this message was later used to bring about justice in her case. Banaz’s death a short while after this incident was a brutal indictment of the police’s dismissive response (Gill, 2008) – her father eventually committed the murder in January 2006, with the assistance of a young fellow Kurd, and Banaz’s body was then stuffed in a suitcase and buried in a Birmingham garden.

Systemic failures
Fatally lax policing practices have allowed some of the perpetrators in this case to reoffend; shockingly, however, such systemic failures are the norm in cases of violence against girls and women (Newham Asian Women’s Project (NAWP), 2008). For instance, despite the case having been reported to them on four separate occasions, the police either ignored the evidence or failed to institute follow-up investigations into the threats to kill Banaz made by her uncle and father. In the 20 years that NAWP have worked with thousands of victims of gender-based violence, we have observed that such disastrous failures in police response are not uncommon.

For example, in 1993, Partivaben Patel was admitted to Newham General Hospital after being beaten with a hammer by her husband. Partivaben reported her husband’s abuse to East Ham Police but, because she was afraid to take any further action, she returned home. A week later she was dead (NAWP, 2007). NAWP campaigned to ensure that her death would not become another femicide statistic.

Fifteen years after this case, violence against women is still prevalent (EVAW, 2008) – a crime typically perpetrated by men, on women and children. Although the vast majority of victims are women, the abuse of women by husbands, boyfriends and other family members is not a phenomenon restricted to one part of society, but is found in every socioeconomic, cultural and racial group. It occurs with alarming frequency and severity in the UK, accounting for a quarter of all violent crime, and with more repeat victims than any other crime (Povey, Walker & Kershaw, 2005).

NAWP deals with hundreds of women each year who come to us when the prosecution of their abuser is dropped, either by the police or by the Crown Prosecution Service. In challenging their decisions, we often find that the prosecution’s case has broken down because of any number of failures: key evidence may have been inaccurately recorded, misinterpreted or destroyed, or not even gathered by police officers in the first place; the accused may well have been deemed more credible than the victim by the police; or a delay in reporting the crime may have been considered by the criminal justice system to have discredited the complainant. But perhaps the most devastating practice of all, and the one most relevant to the murder of Banaz, is that police officers who ignore the testimony of female victims or witnesses are rarely reprimanded; and if they are, as they were in the case of Banaz, they are only given “written warnings and words of advice” (IPCC, 2008), a practice which is not only shameful but unjust. Is this the only punishment to be meted out for failing Banaz? Furthermore, police forces that fail to gather or share relevant intelligence are the norm, with the result that subsequent incidents often occur where inexperienced officers fail to recognise cries for help (Middle East Centre for Women’s Rights, 2007; Gill, 2008).

Such failures are not surprising, because the government offers little in terms of investment in resources for minority women subject to gender-based violence. During the widespread coverage of Banaz’s murder, not a single prominent politician spoke out to condemn violence against women, call for a public inquiry or even propose a parliamentary debate. It was actually left to the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) violence-against-women movement to step forward and demand such an inquiry. Significant resources have been invested by the Government in the so-called ‘community cohesion agenda’, which has ruthlessly bulldozed services that were set up to support women who are desperately trying to lead violence-free lives. (For example, Ealing Council’s decision to cut the funding of Southall Black Sisters.) Money is thrown at initiatives intended to integrate communities, at the cost of excluding women from BME communities from the very services that they need to build their futures and to empower them to escape the violence perpetrated against them.

Enough is enough
Above all, we need to understand why the police service cannot, or will not, use its powers to protect women. At this very moment, somewhere in the country, an Asian woman could be in danger of her life as a result of domestic violence. Whether or not she will be able to reach a specialist refuge is questionable, as such lifelines are being denied to vulnerable women in the name of ‘community cohesion’. Whether or not she will be protected by the police attending the scene of the violence is anyone’s guess.

Public confidence and trust in the system will not grow, and lessons will not be learnt, unless agencies accept culpability when they make mistakes and act to rectify them, in order to bring real change in the efforts to save the lives of vulnerable women. Such changes require investment, commitment and accountability for mistakes made. When governments cut back on specialist services, as has been happening in the case of the Southall Black Sisters and other such agencies, the first to suffer are those in the greatest need.

Solving the killings of women is one thing; solving the complex social issues inextricably linked to those killings is quite another. But if we do not do it, and soon, how many more young women are going to end up dead? Violence and murder against women – the “honour-based” crimes that I prefer to call dishonourable crimes of murder – may be universal; but they are not inevitable, if we are ready to stand up, speak out and challenge the structures of inequality across society in order to change the way in which services are delivered. Each one of us must be clear and unequivocal: enough is enough. These human-rights violations should not be tolerated, and we will not remain silent or rest until “honour-based” violence, this insidious weapon of patriarchy, has been eradicated.

Dr Aisha Gill is the Chairwoman of Newham Asian Women’s Project and a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Roehampton University: a.gill@roehampton.ac.uk
http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/news/pr_020408_banaz_mahmod.htm
Britten, B. (2008) Police failed to heed pleas from honour victim, available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/02/nhonour102.xml
Gill, A. (2008) Killing Women for ‘Honour’ and the Quest for Justice in Black and Minority Ethnic Communities, Criminal Justice Policy Review (f/c).
Gill, A. , Banga, B. (2008) The Reality and Impact of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 on BMER Women Experiencing Gender-Based Violence, Safe Journal, UK.
Crown Prosecution Service, (2007) Forced Marriage and Honour Crimes, pilot study in the UK, London.
Barton, F., Wright, S. (2007) Murder girl's five cries for help that were ignored, available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=461280&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source
Newham Asian Women’s Project (2007) Annual Report: Celebrating Twenty Years of Working with Women; Working against Violence, NAWP: London.
Nicholas, D. Povey, A. Walker & C. Kershaw (2005) Crime in England and Wales 2004/2005, Home Office.

Another Jack the Ripper exhibition

Finn Mackay
Co-Founder: Feminist Coalition Against Prostitution
www.fcap.btik.com


There is a new Jack the Ripper exhibition at the Museum In the Docklands. This is the classier Jack the Ripper exhibition, and not to be confused with the tackier Jack the Ripper exhibition at The London Dungeon. That’s them that have the posters on the underground saying: “visit your local butcher”; tasteful.

The Museum In the Docklands however, is a very nice museum. They are obviously trying to get more people through their nice doors and they, probably rightly, think that a bit of sexualised violence against women will do the job....



Being not interested in Jack the Ripper at all, but very interested in the history of prostitution, I decided to go along and check it out. I’ve known about the exhibition for some time now. I actually went to meet with the Education Officer at the Museum a few months ago, in my capacity as Co-Founder of the Feminist Coalition Against Prostitution. We talked about what form the show was going to take and the possibility of putting on linked events, which could address the issue of prostitution today. The Museum also consulted with organisations such as Toynbee Hall’s ‘Safe Exit’ programme, which supports women involved in prostitution. In all, they seemed very keen to ensure the exhibition was as sensitive as is possible. Well, as much as it can be of course, given that its in the name of a serial murderer who preyed on vulnerable, marginalized women involved in the world’s oldest oppression, and who has been treated as some sort of national hero ever since…

I visited on a Sunday and it was still fairly busy, staff told me that it had sold out the day before. Entry was being staggered to ensure it didn’t get too full. I’ve been to a few exhibitions at the Museum In the Docklands and I don’t remember them being so busy. Clearly London’s most famous son is a money-spinner, incidentally I’d always thought that was Dick Whittington, but I guess boys and their cats are not as exciting as killers. Bit of a failing if you ask me. The exhibition is advertised as not being suitable for children under 12. Pretty depressing to think that children not much older than that are actually being exploited in prostitution on our own streets every night. Indeed the global average age of entry into prostitution is only 13 to 14 years old. So, thinking these happy thoughts I made my way through the heavy double doors and into the exhibition, wondering just how bad it was going to be. On entering, the lighting gets much dimmer, for a more spooky effect I suppose. The interpretive panels are all quite plain, with the names of the murder victims written in red and the dates they were discovered. There are newspapers from the day, actual police reports of the crime scenes all filled out in lovely, swirly script and genuine copies of hoax letters sent to the Met, amongst many other artefacts and original documents. However, as I went round the displays I did think that this was perhaps less about Jack the Ripper and more an exercise in “The History of the East End (by stealth)”. There is in fact, a lot of very enlightening information on the history of the East End. The way people lived, the poverty and the attitudes of ‘civilised’ society to these slums and the people struggling to survive in them; attitudes that were anything but civilised. All of this was very interesting and I would say came across as the main focus of the exhibition.

As for Jack the Ripper himself, it was pretty much as I expected. Lots of attention to what we have made of him and the legend he has become over the centuries. Ironically, this exhibition in his name, of course further adds to his legend. Our fascination with constructing the murderer as some sort of mysterious, romantic anti-hero is another focus of the show. This fascination is unfortunately, perfectly exposed in the words of Bonnie Greer, interviewed especially for this event and making up one of the short interpretive films that are interspersed throughout. I’d always liked Bonnie Greer, but I’ve gone right off her now. She seems to sincerely believe, or has anyway persuaded herself for this showcase, that Jack the Ripper represents the savage in us all. That his crimes illustrate the desires and intentions that lie behind our veneer of civility and that if we scratch the surface we all want to “get away with it” as he did. She’ll be arguing that pornography protects free speech next. Perhaps she already does. After seeing this interview with her, it wouldn’t surprise me.
Considering the great number of often ignored freedom fighters, real heroes and heroines in the world, it is a great shame that a brutal murderer of women is being presented as the embodiment of ‘real’ human nature and our desire to put two fingers up to authority. Yes indeed, Jack fought the law and Jack won. But this doesn’t make him a hero. It perhaps says more about the lack of interest in finding a killer who only targeted “fallen women” from the “unfortunate classes” and also, the difficulties of investigating crimes in a ghetto, which had almost been boarded up and left to get on with it, by the rest of society.

Is it only because he was never found and brought to justice that this serial murderer has become such a legend? Would we say that Steve Wright is a hero? Peter Sutcliffe or Robert Pickton? When we do know who they are society brands them monstors, but in the case of Jack the Ripper his cloak shaped void has been filled by a lot of ridiculous romanticised notions and topped off with a hat and cane. Who is he? He is everyman, he could be anyone. He is invisible like most punters are. The truth that should come screaming out of this exhibition is that men have been abusing and killing women in prostitution for centuries, that these women have always been vulnerable and that stigma has always attached to them rather than the men who choose to exploit them.

The press cuttings reproduced in the exhibition illustrate this, showing us that views towards women in prostitution have not changed much. The articles are obsessed with the gory details of how the women were killed, are clear to point out that they were involved in prostitution and prompt the reader to make all the judgements that go with that. It reminded me that society seems so much more interested in prostituted women when they are dead. But only if they are killed in a spectacularly gory way that is, and if there are a lot of killings at once, otherwise nobody is that bothered. Because of course, women are killed and assaulted every day and this never hits the headlines, quite simply: it’s so common it isn’t news. Here in our country, two women every week are murdered by a violent male partner, for example. There are around 80,000 rapes every year. For women in prostitution the levels of male violence are even higher. They go missing all the time, are raped, killed and brutalised all the time. Canadian studies estimate that women involved in prostitution face a murder rate 40 times higher than the average. I wonder what women in prostitution in the East End now, think of Jack The Ripper. Their voices are of course, a glaring omission from the exhibition. Does the fact that his legend is still pulling in the punters today serve as a reminder that we find serial murders of women in prostitution a source of intrigue and entertainment, possibly a bit sexy? What does it say about our society that we have accepted the buying and selling of women as inevitable and cannot bring ourselves to question this status quo, yet we buy books, queue up and spend money to find out more about a man who brutally murdered prostituted women?

Personally, I don’t find the disembowelling of women entertaining. I’d rather I hadn’t looked at the cigarette card style, sepia photos of the victims that are displayed at the end of the exhibition. Each one is lined up along a starkly lit, white circular wall that forms a sort of round, mini-gallery. There is a warning on the outside, that some may find the crime scene photos disturbing. They certainly are images I could have done without putting into my head, and now they are an addition to all the other horrors that men inflict on women that I know far too much about. As I walked round the photos, with the name of each woman underneath, like some sort of ghoulish roll call, it felt like a memorial; an unfitting memorial. It made me think that perhaps we do need somewhere to remember our dead, to remember all our sisters fallen in a struggle that has been going on for far too long. But this place is not in a museum exhibition dedicated to one of their killers.

When I left I felt rather sullied, and found myself wondering what I’d been part of. I couldn’t wait to get outside into the fresh air and sunlight so I chose not to take up the offer, advertised on my ticket, of a “Jack the Ripper meal” at the Museum’s attached café. Perhaps I missed out by not stopping to taste their take on “what Jack would have dined on..”. But then, gory details of woman killing doesn’t do much for my appetite.

The last words in the Jack the Ripper exhibition, somewhat ironically, read: “The endless obsession with Jack the Ripper glamourises serial murderers and trivialises violence against women.” Indeed. Perhaps one day the violence against women that is prostitution will only be a feature in museums, and we will all look back in shame at what we condoned. I hope that everyone who visits this exhibition will ask themselves what they can do to make that day a reality.