International Women’s Day: A glance at the last seven days of news in the UK sadly proves the case for this annual celebration, argues Radhika Sanghani
Not everyone ‘gets’ International Women’s Day (IWD). There are many people who don’t appreciate the idea of giving women a day to celebrate their achievements and shine a light on the continuing struggle for gender equality.
What’s the point of giving women an entire day as a worldwide holiday? they ask. OK, IWD kind of made sense when it began in the 1900s during the suffragettes’ fight for women’s rights, but now that women have the vote, western law treats them equally, and women aren’t expected to be stay-at-home housewives, do we really need it?
In a nutshell, yes. Yes, we do.
IWD2015 isn’t just a hashtag; it’s a reminder that women aren’t treated equally to men across the world. Women worldwide are subjected to shocking abuse from sexual violence in warzones and female genital mutilation, to forced marriage and becoming child brides.
No one can deny that these things shouldn’t happen, and that women should be afforded more rights. But what the doubters tend to say here is that this is all happening abroad; that IWD doesn’t concern us here in the UK – it’s just another ‘raising awareness’ exercise to show inequality across the world.
Except that just isn't true. Every day British women are beaten, sexually abused, and murdered. Violence against women and girls is systematic, and on top of that, all women face everyday sexism – whether it’s in the workplace or the street.
Think you’ve heard it all before? Well, here’s the proof.
The following seven incidents all appeared in the news this week, and they all took place here in the UK:
1) 16-year-old Becky Watts was murdered. The Bristol teenager went missing on February 19, and this week detectives received information her body parts had been ‘cut up’. Her stepbrother Nathan Matthews, 28, has been charged with her murder.
Becky Watts was described as 'wonderful' by her family
2) Danielle Liddle, 22, was beaten with baseball bats and slashed in the face while she was in labour. On Monday she was just about to leave for the hospital when a gang of five masked men smashed into her house and attacked her with crowbars and a knife.
She gave birth to a healthy baby boy despite her injuries but her partner says she is still too traumatised to go home and may have a fractured skull.
3) Pennie Davis, 47, was stabbed to death to stop her making a sexual assault claim, a jury heard this week. The mother and horse lover is alleged to have been murdered to stop her going to the police and saying that 22-year-old Ben Carr – her partner’s son - had indecently assaulted someone.
4) 15-year-old schoolgirl Toni Connell died after being bullied. It’s not yet clear how she died but police aren’t treating it as suspicious, and her mother Amanda Connell said this week that she believed cyber-bullying led to her daughter’s death, as well as academic pressure.
5) A female police officer was pushed onto train tracks by a drunk man in Manchester. Kevin Pythian, 32, scuffled with the 36-year-old woman, before pushing her off the train platform. The fall knocked her unconscious and left her with a gashed head, broken fingers and cuts and bruises.
6) The Home Office told a Nigerian asylum seeker that she can’t be a lesbian because she has children. Aderonke Apata, 47, could now be deported back to her home country which can punish homosexuality with up to 14 years in prison. Apata has a fiancée, Happiness Agboro, and even submitted footage of her sex life to the Government to prove her sexuality.
Aderonke Apata
7) Undercover footage of immigration removal centre Yarl’s Wood found that guards called. Telegraph
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