Women's
Voices
There 646
Members of Parliament. Since 1918, there have been
4,659 people elected as Member’s of Parliament. Of these 4,659 only 291 have
been women, a mere 6% of all MP’s ever elected. Sixty four percent of those
women MP’s have been Labour MP’s. I mention this because two very
important women have died recently. I have already written of the
loss of Gwyneth Dunwoody the longest serving women MP who serves
for 38 years as an MP. The second person who has died you will not
have heard of. Val
Price dedicated her life to supporting and encouraging women to
stand for elected office. Val gave advice, support and
guidance to women who are now MP’s, AM’s and MSP’s. Val’s funeral is this week and
she is a great loss to Britain’s democracy.
My mother is
93 and was four in 1918 when women first obtained the vote and
fourteen before women had the vote at 21, at the same age as
men. That vote took a
long time to achieve.
The first campaign started in 1762 with the publication of a book
by Mary Wollstonecraft called A Vindication of the Rights of
Women. It took
until the Campaign for Universal Suffrage started in 1905 for the
real fight to begin; the rest is history. Unless of course you read the
arguments about women not being fit to have the vote because of
their weak brains and the undermining of the male authority as head
of the household.
Of the 291
women, 120 were elected to the 1997 Parliament making it the
largest ever intake of women. They were immediately denigrated and
referred to as Blair’s babes. The gibe about women having weak
brains had not gone far away. The difficulties these women
experienced entering Parliament are detailed in a book called Women
in Parliament The new Suffragettes. The sexual jibes and gestures
across the chamber, the harassment and abuse are all documented and
make shocking reading when we think of Britain as a mature
democracy.
I remember
this when I meet MP’s from newly emerging democracies. In Lebanon I met with a group of
male MP’s who talked of how women were not suited to the
difficulties and stresses of political life. There were three women MP’s all
of whom had been elected following the death of their
husbands. Oddly
enough, the first three British women MP’s, also took their seats
following the death of their husbands. The first was Lady Astor in1919
and she committed herself to enabling women and children’s voices
to be heard in Parliament. Her first Bill became the very
topically titled, Intoxicating Liquor (Sales to persons under 18)
Act.
In the
league tables of women’s representation around the world Britian is
joint 58th alongside Cambodia with 19.8% of women
elected as MP’s in 2005 the year I entered Parliament. The top three countries with
representation of women in the lower house are Rwanda (48%), Sweden
(47%) and Cuba (43%).
Why is this
important? Last week
the All Party Human Rights Group examined a report on how women are
affected by war and how rape is being used as a form of terrorism
and ethnic cleansing.
It is easy to think of this as shocking and far away. Yet in Britain today violence is
still all too common an experience in the lives of many
women. The first
refuge for women fleeing domestic violence was only opened in 1971.
There are no figures for the level of domestic violence in 1971
because it was a hidden crime. Today domestic violence accounts
for 16% of all violent crime with an incident of reported to the
police every minute of every day. On average one on four women are
killed each week for a current or former partner. Since 1997 those women MP’s
helped spearhead a number of Acts which address domestic violence,
including the
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act, the
Crime and Disorder Act -
Protection from Harassment Act , the
Family Law Act and Children Act and the
Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence
Act.. Together these pieces
of legislation have increased the successful prosecution rate for
domestic violence from 46% in 2003 to 69% by December
2007.
Some
progress there but rape in the UK has a conviction rate of less
than 6%, despite the 2003 Sexual Offences Act replacing previous
legislation enacted in 1956.
The UK is also a major destination for
trafficked women.
World wide 77% of trafficking cases involve women, with sexual
exploitation a factor in 87% of cases. Police believe that about
4,000 have been brought in to the UK and forced to work as
prostitutes. During police raids on brothels and massage
parlours in Swansea, Cardiff
and Bridgend in 2005 trafficked women were
found.
I am always shocked when young women take
their new status in society for granted and see politics as nothing
to do with them.
Politics brought women the vote and around the world female
politicians are fighting for women’s rights, safety and
protection.
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