When I first heard about Sarah Everard being missing,
I just prayed that she would return home safely.
It is a fear that we all have so we hold keys in our hands,
we make those fake phone calls we pace in our steps,
we look behind our shoulders we jump our own....
...oh my god...
...
When the news reported that she had been in fact murdered
it just hit home so hard because that's the deep-rooted fear
that all of us have that we won't return home.
Cases like this aren't rare they happen very often to too many of us.
On one occasion I was walking home from university,
it was probably just after 7 o'clock quite dark and a car started to follow me,
and as I started pacing my steps and running they also sped,
I ran into a petrol station and had to call my uncle to pick me up
because I was scared that they would kidnap me and all those fears of rape,
murder, going missing, immediately those were my natural instincts.
It sounds bizarre to say but the truth is that women should be able,
to walk home without the fear of going missing.
This isn't a new issue women have faced and fought
against male violence for centuries.
In the 1970s we saw women take to the streets with 'Reclaim The Night'
to make a stand against this.
With the suffragettes their slogan 'Deeds Not Words' still resonates today.
After 'Me Too' many people would have thought that things would change
societally in terms of culture and attitude and political policy as well,
and unfortunately that's not the case.
As a member of parliament I too have received things in the post,
on social media, rape threats, death threats unfortunately in a patriarchal society.
This is something that is far too common for so many women.
The criminal justice system is failing women with rape convictions
at a record low campaigners have called this effectively the decriminalisation of rape.
As a society we need to think beyond increasing police numbers to deal with this issue.
97% of women in the uk aged 18 to 24 have experienced sexual harassment,
and 80% of women overall.
Every single man, every single boy has a role to play in what they can do,
to make things safer for women and how they can stop reproducing this violence.
In our schools colleges and universities we need to reimagine sex and relationship classes,
to include consent, healthy relationships and more.
The government also needs to reverse a decades worth of cuts to women's services,
including women's refuges and services for black asian and minority ethnic women.
There isn't a silver bullet solution for this we need social, economic,
and political change to end male violence against women and girls.
When I heard that there would be a vigil for Sarah Everard I thought that was really
important for women to come together to collectively remember, reflect and grieve.
As well as showing solidarity with each other at such a difficult time.
The policing at the vigil was horrific, the Met have made
a catalogue of catastrophic errors in dealing with this.
From not understanding the need for women to come together in a Covid safe way,
to policing the vigil in the way that they did and then the violence that we've seen.
Cressida Dick and Priti Patel have overseen this violence,
what that shows is the limitations of representation politics.
Having women at the top doesn't mean that women's issues are going to be solved
we need deep structural change.
Cressida Dick needs to resign but overall responsibility lies with the home secretary
Priti Patel and this government and its increasing dissent into authoritarianism.
In the last six months we have seen frightening things from this Conservative government.
They have pushed through the overseas operations bill
which decriminalises torture by British personnel overseas.
Then we saw the spy cops bill which gives authorities the power to authorise
state agents to commit torture, rape and murder.
And now we have the 'Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill' which is
the latest attack by this conservative government on our rights.
It gives police new powers to crack down on protests sighting 'Noise Disruption'.
For defacing a statue you can now face 10 years in jail.
And also it specifically targets the Gypsy, Roma, Traveler Community,
one of the most discriminated and persecuted communities in our country.
To resist this increasingly authoritarian government we need to collectively organise,
we need to fight back on the scale that they are fighting against us
we have already seen direct action getting the goods.
The Labour Party was planning on abstaining on this bill but women coming together
and fighting back has meant that we will now be opposing it,
I was always going to oppose it.
The past few years have seen huge grassroots movements come to the streets,
from Black Lives Matter, Me Too and the climate movement.
What that shows is that power truly lies in our communities,
and we need to harness that and fight for that change that we desperately,
need to see for a fairer more equitable society.
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