‘WHY WOMEN’ NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT

‘WHY WOMEN’ NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT

Susan Moore

International Women’s Day 2006 saw the launching of the “Why Women” campaign by the Women’s Resource Centre to defend services for women as an essential part of social provision

“At the beginning we started an obituary list for groups that had closed and just watched with horror as it grew and grew,” says policy co-ordinator Tania Pouwhare.

“It’s common for voluntary sector groups to face funding problems, but we saw this was becoming an overwhelming issue.”

Pouwhare is concerned that there is a growing attitude amongst funders that the battle for women’s equality has been won and discrimination overcome. In the context of a continual battle for apparently scarce resources, this means services to women are particularly under threat.

Of course such assumptions are an outrage. Women continue to face discrimination in every aspects of our lives; in the family, in the education system, at work, in terms of our right to control our bodies, in the way images of us as used to sell every commodity in the universe, and in many, many other ways.

And the improvements that have been made over the last thirty years and more have been achieved through women coming together and campaigning. Sometimes that has happened through campaigns run entirely on a voluntary basis, sometimes the support of organisations such as trade unions has been essential and sometimes charities which have received public funds have played an essential role.

For example, 1992 was a landmark moment in the battle against domestic violence when Kiranjit Ahluwalia had her conviction quashed and was freed after a retrial. Ahluwalia had been sentenced to life imprisonment or killing her violent husband.

But without the support of Southall Black Sisters who took up the case and mounted a lengthy campaign of pickets outside the court combined with publicity initiatives highlighting the reality of the lives of women subjected to domestic violence, it is very unlikely that victory would have been achieved.

“What we did was force the justice system to widen the definition of provocation to acknowledge the cumulative effect of years of physical and psychological abuse,” says Hammana Siddiqui, joint coordinator of services at Southall Black Sisters.

“It was a huge landmark in awareness in the long-term effects of domestic violence. And frankly there’s no way this would have been possible if our group hadn’t taken on her case because, at the time, nobody else was doing it.”

But of course that victory, like other achievements made in the battle for women’s equality, will only be sustained if campaigning is continued. Siddiqui says that today they are facing “a mounting crisis” and that, without urgent sustainable investment by statutory funders, hundreds of grassroots women’s organisations will have to close.

“The government has never adequately invested in the women’s sector,” says Siddiqui. “Now that we’re living in an era of commissioning and contracts, specialist groups like women’s charities are getting pushed out in favour of generic services that can tick as many boxes as possible.”

With the Budget being announced in April the campaign is currently lobbying Gordon Brown to provide funding to save the women’s voluntary and community sector (WVCS).

This is particularly vital this year as the government is putting forward a funding strategy for the sector for the next 10 years.

The campaign is urging people to write to Gordon Brown to explain:

why the women’s voluntary and community sector is so important to you/your service-users
that we are facing a worsening funding crisis and action needs to be taken NOW, with funding provision in the Budget to help save women’s organisations from more closures and cutbacks.
that we need sustainable, long-term funding, not just “quick-fixes”.
how important it is to change the “no recourse to public funds” rule which stops women with insecure immigration status, such as asylum seekers, trafficked women and migrant domestic workers from accessing public funds, even if they need to leave a violent relationship.

Refuges are being forced to turn women away or fund their places out of the organisation’s reserves, and the women are often forced to stay in violent situations. This is a human rights issue that urgently needs addressing.