Today was Friday, so time for my keynote speech as Principal Speaker (my last as I’m stepping down this autumn to focus for the next six months on the London elections). It went down well I think, and was roughly split into thirds: starting with the failure of the other parties on climate change, then moving onto the positive benefits of our policies right across people’s lives, and finishing with how we can win our first Westminster seats at the next General Election.
The longest bit was about how, unlike the other parties, for the Greens tackling climate change isn’t about sacrifice or guilt. It means creating a fairer, happier, healthier, more enjoyable life as well as saving the planet. The two are the same as far as we are concerned, because sustainability is at the heart of our policies, not an add-on designed to blunt the edges of a destructive, maximum-growth agenda.
Later in the afternoon, I chaired a panel discussion with the title ‘Women Left Behind’. We had three truly inspiring speakers, whose personal stories were harrowing to listen to, but whose resilience and determination in standing up for their rights and those of other women was impressive.
Diana Nammi from the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation talked with urgency and passion about the thorny issue of cultural relativism within the UK, namely forced marriages and ‘honour killings’.
Diana brought home the message of the organisation with demands for a wholesale renewal of the British state’s attitude and policies towards dealing with both women seeking asylum from countries which advocate these institutions, and the treatment of women within the UK.
Yvonne Cass joined us from the Northern Refugee Centre, which provides support and assistance for women refugees. She talked about the many dehumanising aspects of applying for asylum in the UK. Women are often afraid or unable to talk about their reasons for seeking asylum, if they have been subjected to rape and sexual aggression, there is often shame and disgrace in admission as in their culture it is the woman who is stigmatised by these events.
To add to the difficulties, the Government has now introduced the NAM (New Asylum Model), which requires applicants to tell their story and reasons for applying for asylum from between four to 14 days after arriving in the UK.
Toni Cole, from the Safety First Coalition, talked about the crucial need to decriminalise prostitution and the men who seek to use prostitutes, and strengthen the resources against the men who use violence and aggression against women.
After being harrowingly raped and violently abused, Ms Cole’s evidence and statement to the police was rejected by the Crown Prosecution Services due to “lack of evidence” and because it was merely “her word against his”. Undeterred, she brought a private prosecution against her attacker and, after 3 years – and on the same evidence that was originally dismissed by the CPS – her attacker was sentenced to 11 years.
The Safety First Coalition’s campaign is about removing the licence men imagine they have to abuse prostitutes. By decriminalising and regulating prostitution, women are able to work in clean and safe conditions – you’re 10 times less likely to be attacked in a brothel than working on the street, yet a ‘brothel keeper’ can face 7 years in prison compared to 6 months 20 years ago.
After the panellists spoke, the question we were left with was ‘what can we do about this?’ In policy terms, we are almost there already, but we could add more to our policy armoury that specifically deal with these issues from the perspective of the ‘double disadvantage’ women face.
Practical steps include signing Safety First’s petition for the decriminalisation of sex work, which I’ll be going straight off to do; and, at a local level, Yvonne put it best when she said, ‘Find out more about what is happening at your local detention centre’.
We do need to bring to people’s notice the fact that people seeking asylum are being treated incredibly badly, and that these centres are being used to imprison families, including children, who have already faced enormous trauma in the countries they are fleeing. Would we put up with this for long if it was our children? I don’t think so, but under the umbrella of asylum policy this abuse seems to have slipped through the net.
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