Today International Women’s Day, a day in which we celebrate inspirational women and reflect on the inequalities women still face at home and abroad. At home a vital protection for women, the Human Rights Act, is under threat. The Conservatives have claimed that they will scrap the act and potentially pull out of the European Court of Human Rights.
What many people do not realise is the impact this could have on sexual violence. Every year 85,000 women are raped in the United Kingdom, and the Human Rights Act is there to help them get justice and deter future crimes.
Take the case of the ‘Black Cab Rapist’ John Worboys. It is believed he sexually assaulted at least 105 women in a six-year period. When the police failed to investigate claims against him brought forward by two of the victims, they decided to use the Human Rights Act to sue the Met under Article 3 (prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment). Under this law, police failure to investigate claims is a breach of the victim’s human rights. Thanks to this case, police all over the country are less inclined to ignore allegations of rape.
The Human Rights Act is a vital protection to all citizens of this country. Anyone who believes that the state has violated their human rights and that they have been treated in an undignified way is able to take their complaint to a British court and seek justice. When you consider that up to three million women in the UK experience rape, domestic violence, stalking or other violence each year, this is a protection that is crucial to a large part of the population.
This is especially true at a time when women’s lives are harder than they have been for decades. Although the gender pay gap has been narrowing since 1997, men still earn 17.5 per cent more than women giving them more of a disposable income and choice.
The government’s commitment to austerity has hit women the hardest. Closure of Sure Start centres, cutbacks on public sector jobs (three-quarters of local government workers are women) and welfare cuts have disproportionately affected women. When you then consider that there is a shortfall of 32 per cent on the number of beds needed in women’s refuges and that many of these centres are being shut across the country, women are facing challenges on economic and social fronts with few places to turn to when they are struggling or facing injustice.
The loss of the Human Rights Act would be yet another blow inflicted by this government on women.
Consider what would have happened to cases such as that of the mother who had to continually move her children because her abusive husband kept tracking them down. When they eventually arrived in London social workers took away her children as they claimed she was an unfit mother for making them intentionally homeless.
The woman was aided by an advice worker who argued that social services did not consider her right to a family life, as protected by Article 8, when taking this action and the woman was able to be with her children again. Without the Human Rights Act, this woman could have lost her children or been caught by her abusive husband and faced a grim future.
The proposals by the Conservatives to scrap the Human Rights Act are a continuation of discriminating policies that makes life harder for women. Although many things have changed for women since the first International Women’s Day in 1909, we are still a long way to equality between the genders. The scrapping of a law which gives women an extra layer of protection against injustices is a step in the wrong direction.
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Ailar Hashemzadeh is campaigns officer at the Labour Campaign for Human Rights
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