Women’s Lives Matter

Louise Harrison writes from Doncaster.

If you are a working class woman living in today’s Britain, it’s fairly guaranteed you will be experiencing one of three things; low pay, unwanted reduced hours or living in fear of public sector cuts that will take away your much needed job. Consequently, you will have some type of contact with the benefits system. What most of us won’t know is, that since 2010, women have had 22 out of the £26 billion worth of benefit cuts taken from them. If you imagine for a second what these state imposed sanctions will do to us, I suspect you will think poverty, long term poverty, caused through reduced pensions, wages and benefits.

What happens if you add domestic violence to that mix? And you should, as one in four women will experience it in their lifetime. You should, as two women a week in the UK are murdered by an intimate partner and three commit suicide as a result of living with it. And you most definitely should because 54% of domestic violence services have been forced to close since 2010 as a result of austerity.

Good old Tory imposed austerity has not only been responsible for widening the gap between the rich and poor but it’s spectacular success has been in hitting disabled and BME women the most, making them some of the poorest in our society.
So, try adding domestic violence to their daily lives?

In Doncaster this is precisely what we did. When domestic violence survivors, workers and volunteers heard that women’s aid was closing down in our town this February, due to a lack of funds, despair and fury ran through our bodies and minds. This service had been in our town, quietly keeping women and their children safe and alive for forty years.

So what price do we put on a woman’s life? In Doncaster, it appeared our price was too high; we cost far too much for those in power to consider giving us a safe women’s only space, in order that we could receive advice and support around domestic violence.

Thankfully, enough women in our community thought differently and came together from all over Doncaster, with men too, to say enough was enough – women’s lives mattered. Our campaign began; fueled by a sense of injustice and rightly placed anger, both would see us through weekly street protests, public meetings, radio interviews and council budget protests. It saw us through our own personal battles whilst we campaigned, creating bonds of comradeship that we’ll never forget. We shouted loudly, women’s lives mattered and when Question Time came to Doncaster, we made sure our story would be heard nationwide.

Sadly, we couldn’t save the old women’s aid, but with passion and perseverance we have established a grass roots new service, with initial funding of thirty thousand from the council. We will campaign to make sure other funds become available to us; to create an empowering safe space required by women.

As campaigners we grew to realize the two forms of violence women experience in our society (intimate and state) are inseparable; as we live in a world that says women deserve less and should be grateful for the scraps of life they are given. They show us our lives are expendable by taking our livelihoods away from us, our specialist services and our voices.

Inspired by Sisters UnCut, we were given the strength to take to the streets to say we deserve better, demand better and we will have better.

Strengthened by Sisters UnCut we knew that our demands should be met immediately not after an election victory; and they were!

Women’s Lives Matter are taking back to the streets to meet women and ask them what type of domestic violence service they want in their town? We believe DV services should put women at the heart of them and their heart should be shaped by the needs of the woman.

Women’s Lives Matter, like the Black Lives Matter campaign, shines an uncomfortable light on the dark aspects of our society. And without a shadow of a doubt both campaigns are here to stay; especially as refuges and specialist refuges have continued to close over the last ten years. We are particularly pleased that Jeremy Corbyn has created the first shadow minister for abuse and domestic abuse (Sarah Champion MP) and we very much look forward to them both working closely with grassroots campaigns to ensure women in our country are free from intimate and state violence.

Visit Women’s Lives Matter, Doncaster Facebook page.

Contact South Yorkshire women’s aid (Doncaster) at Sywadoncaster@outlook.com