Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-09-05
Topic: Civil Rights
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): I want to put on record my tremendous respect for the very hard work done by Gina Martin to get this legislation before Parliament and by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). It is a testament to the power of a good argument whose time has come. All these women are right that we should not wait around for this legislation, but we should make sure that it works I also want to put on record my support for the work that the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) has done, and for her amendments and the case she is making. I will be voting for the Bill and supporting it wholeheartedly, but I will also be supporting all efforts to improve it, because I do not believe that those two things are incompatible. We should never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We should recognise that legislation with holes in it will inevitably return to us. It is in that spirit that I have tabled my new clause and amendment, which are about the context in which this crime takes place, and I am proud to see the support for them from across the House Let me be very clear that treating misogyny as something we should tackle is not about flirting. It is not about banter. It is not about telling all men that they are rapists. It is not even about new crimes. We cannot apply a hate crime tariff to something that is not already a hate crime. It is about something that has become so widespread that we treat it as a fact of life—but only for 51% of our population Across the UK, a huge majority—85%—of young women and nearly half of all women report experiencing sexual harassment in public places. Only one in 10 of them have ever reported receiving help after such incidents. Without recognising the role of misogyny in the day-to-day experiences of women in our society, our legal and criminal justice system masks the true extent of the hostility that exists against gender. This is not about criminalising wolf-whistling or flirting. It is about recognising existing crimes that are motivated by hostility towards somebody because of their gender, as well as recognising what they are—hate crimes Although women have protection in their workplaces under equality legislation, as soon as they step out of the door on to our streets, they are not protected. If somebody targets people on the basis of their faith or religion, they can receive a tougher sentence for their behaviour under the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Somebody who repeatedly targets women in the same way faces no such comparable sanction I hope that we all agree that our young women deserve better. It is particularly our young women who are reporting this as part and parcel of everyday life. One thousand women aged 14 to 21 were asked by Plan International about their experiences in public settings, whether on transport, walking on the street, just going to school or even going to work, with 66% saying they experienced unwanted sexual attention or sexual or physical contact in a public place. Some 40% said that they experienced verbal harassment and 15% said they had been touched, groped or grabbed at least once a month What does that mean in practice? It means the experiences of my own constituents, whom I asked about this issue. One woman was followed down the road by a man in a car demanding that she get in. She was then told that he was pranking her when she complained and called a racist for refusing to go with him. A mother wrote to me about her young daughter. Only last week, somebody had come up to her in a tube station, put his face right up in hers and shouted, "Sexy bitch, " very aggressively. She had been sitting on a bus as men played videos of men masturbating, showing the phones to her to make sure she had seen them. As the mother said: "This is not about trying to chat someone up—it’s a power play, exerting control and making women feel frightened and unsafe in their own streets." Girls and women are nervous about retaliation and worried about what might happen if they fight back. Women say that it is not about whether they are attractive, because violence is never far behind if they reject these advances This is about what makes a hate crime. It is not pleasant and funny; it is a way of keeping women and girls feeling on edge all the time and unable to move freely in their own areas. As the mother said, her children walk around "heads down, headphones in", tensely and purposely avoiding eye contact or hassle from men. That is harassment—it is legally harassment. The women have said no, yet these men still persist. All of us worry what a man who behaves like that might go on to do if his behaviour is not addressed It is really important for us to be very clear that we are not talking about all men. Most men in this country do not behave like that towards women, and would be horrified to see that kind of behaviour happening to their mothers, daughters, wives, sisters or friends. In proposing my amendments, I want to defend the reputation of the men of this country. This is not about their behaviour; it is about some men’s behaviour—enough men’s behaviour to make women’s lives difficult, and enough men’s behaviour to mean that women experience hatred.