Brighton women show their strength on London march
8 March 2008
Local Green Euro-MP Caroline Lucas joined Brighton and Hove women for the ‘Million Women Rise’ march to commemorate International Women’s Day on Saturday 8 March.Dr Lucas addressed what authorities expected to be the largest women-only march in the UK’s history.
The Green Party Euro-MP used her address at the rally to urge international authorities to crack down on violence against women in the light of three high-profile convictions in the UK for sexually-motivated violence: those of Levi Bellfield, Steve Wright and Mark Dixie.
Dr Lucas (left) said: “I’m deeply honoured to have been asked to speak at the rally, and to join a group of women from Brighton to take part.
“Gender-based crimes are crimes against humanity.
"Governments around the world, as well as here in the UK, must ensure more is done to adequately punish the perpetrators, care for the survivors, and make this sort of violence totally unacceptable.
“Less than five per cent of rapes in the UK result in a successful conviction – and the figures are even worse here in Sussex.
“The Government must urgently address the funding crisis faced by specialist support centres like rape crisis centres, and stop reducing funding for the police to bring offenders to justice.”
Dr Lucas added that tackling violence against women required politicians and the Government to recognize that, whether such crimes take place in times of peace or war, they are human rights abuses and should be treated as such.
“The stark reality is that these arguments are best made by women in politics – and there are still too few of them. It’s been 90 years since women in the UK won the right to vote, but in that time Brighton Pavilion has never returned a woman MP.”
Notes to editors:
Note to Editors:For more information on the Million Women Rise march, and International Women’s Day 2008, see www.millionwomenrise.comFor more information please contact Ben on 07973 823358 or email
ben@greenmeps.org.uk
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