International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2017-03-02
Topic: Civil Rights
Jessica Rose Phillips (Labour, Centre-left): I beg to move, That this House welcomes International Women’s Day as an important occasion to recognise the achievements of women; and calls on the Government to join in this international event and pledge its commitment to gender parity I am honoured to lead this debate today and pay special thanks to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and the hon. Members for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) and for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) for supporting the application to the Backbench Business Committee, on which I remain the only woman member International Women’s Day is an opportunity for all of us to use our voices to celebrate the amazing women of the world. It is also our opportunity to send a rallying cry out to the world about the hardships and injustices women everywhere still face. With each passing day, it seems that right now the women out there need to hear us in here and how we support them more than ever before It will surprise no one that the subject that I will speak about today is violence against women and girls. Before my rallying cry, I want to reflect on where we were last year and where we are now. As I closed my speech on International Women’s Day last year, I declared that the women murdered in the UK deserved better than what they got. I pressed this House to hear their names and feel their pain I have been proud to be a Member of this House in the past year, where parliamentarians, including my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) and for Hove (Peter Kyle), myself and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke and many others, called on the Government to overhaul a family justice system that leaves women and children damaged and unsafe. Our calls were heard, and an establishment—an actual establishment, in this time when we talk of establishments—that others said we would never change will now begin to improve. From this place, a message was sent to women living in fear, and hundreds of them have contacted me to express their gratitude Last week, the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) did a thing that few will manage in their time here when she pushed her Bill to ratify the Istanbul convention through this place to its completion, regardless of those who wanted to stop it. That Bill will mean that a Minister will stand at the Dispatch Box in this place every year and lay out to us exactly how they are going to protect vulnerable women and children Yesterday, the Government finally heard the calls that have echoed round this place for over six years and made sex and relationship education compulsory. We have waited too long for this, but the euphoria felt by myself and many campaigners across the House made me want to cartwheel down the halls The work over the years of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), the right hon. Member for Basingstoke and many others means that girls will now be safer. These changes in the past year are not exclusively due to but have been led and pushed through by the women in this place, with the support of amazing women’s organisations such as Girlguiding, Women’s Aid, IC Change and many other female-led organisations.