One of the most effective voices on issues around domestic violence in the UK today is Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding, Labour MP, Jess Phillips.
Since being elected as MP in 2015, Jess Phillips has marked the annual International Women's Day Parliamentary debate by reading out the names of women whose lives were taken in the previous twelve months, where a man has been charged or convicted as the primary perpetrator.
Here is a small selection of some of her memorable quotes in the media:
14 March 2021 on the Andrew Marr Show, BBC
“…women don't matter as much as cars. We don't matter as much as fly tipping. We don't matter as much as statues. And the law needs to change that."
International Women’s Day UK Parliamentary debate, 11 March 2021
‘In this place, we count what we care about—we count the vaccines done; we count the number of people on benefits.
We rule or oppose based on a count, and we obsessively track that data.
We love to count data about our own popularity.
However, we do not currently count dead women.
No Government study is done into the patterns every year of the data on victims of domestic abuse who are killed, die by suicide or die suddenly.
Dead women is a thing we have all just accepted as part of our daily lives. Dead women are just one of those things.
Killed women are not vanishingly rare; killed women are common.’
13 February 2020 BBC interview
‘When you degrade the escape routes, when you make women poorer, when you cut the council budgets for vulnerable children, when you reduce the police and increase the number of perpetrators released under investigation, you endanger women and children’
International Women’s Day UK Parliamentary debate, 8 March 2016
‘In 2015, a woman was murdered in the UK every three days—women murdered by men who they should have been able to trust. Commonly, women are murdered by their partners, husbands or boyfriends, but also in some cases by their fathers, sons or brothers. We wish to give voice to honour the women who died.’
After reading out the names of the 75 women have died since International Women’s Day in 2015:
‘These were not all poor women. They were women of every age. They were teachers, dinner ladies, doctors, dancers and daughters. Their perpetrators were not feckless drunks, but respected fathers, City bankers and eminent lawyers. Violence against women has no one face. We must do better. These women are gone. Here, in this place, we must not let them die in vain. We owe them that much. We owe them much more than what they got.’
KLAXON is a new novel and thriller about a womanseeking to escape an abusive and dangerous relationship. This Blog seeks to highlight issues around domestic violence and the sources of help for its victims. If you would like to find out more and to get involved with the blog or the promotion of Klaxon through book clubs and other means, please contact the Klaxon team.
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