International Women’s Day

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:02 pm on 11 March 2021.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Dawn Butler Dawn Butler Labour, Brent Central 3:02, 11 March 2021

I congratulate the right hon. Members for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this debate.

Every 16 minutes, a woman or a girl is abused. Every three days, a woman is killed by a man. We heard the list read out by my hon. Friend Jess Phillips. We must get to the root of this crisis. Inequality in society is fuelling the killing of women. The bullying and silencing of women’s voices contributes to the abuse that women receive. If a man was killed every three days, there would be investigations at every level of society. Unfortunately, though, at every level of society, a man still holds the power—whether it be economically, politically, in the media or the judicial system. One woman is killed every three days, but let us ask ourselves this: what are we really doing about it.

It is time for all those with power to stop being bystanders in this pandemic and get involved. Just yesterday, we read about Sarah Everard who it seems has been sadly killed. The suspect is a policeman who roamed the corridors of Parliament. I have made a freedom of information request to establish how many police officers—