‘These crimes don’t happen in a vacuum’: How should the government protect women?

The Independent speaks to MPs and leading campaigners in wake of Sarah Everard’s death

The disappearance of Sarah Everard has triggered an eruption of rage and shock as women have shared their own personal experiences of men harassing, abusing and assaulting them on the UK’s streets.

A new law to protect women against sexual harassment in public spaces is being considered by the government, with ministers also looking into whether anti-harassment education should be given in schools.

Ms Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, went missing after leaving a friend’s flat in Clapham in south London at about 9pm last week. A body discovered in Kent woodlands on Wednesday has been identified as hers.

Outrage over her disappearance comes in the wake of a survey by UN Women this week revealing 97 per cent of young women in the UK said they had been sexually harassed, while 80 per cent reported experiencing sexual harassment in public spaces.

The poll of more than 1,000 women, aged between 18 and 24, found the sexual harassment included being groped, followed and coerced into sexual activity.

Read more

• Duchess of Cambridge pays respects to Sarah Everard at Clapham Common memorial
• ‘He was carrying two knives looking for me’: Women cooped up with abusers during lockdown recount horror
• MPs condemn ‘epidemic of violence’ in wake of Everard disappearance

The Independent has spoken to leading MPs and campaigners about the most important measures the government can take to protect women.

Stella Creasy

Ms Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, has been campaigning for police to start recording misogyny as a hate crime for more than two years. She is calling for the issue to be tackled via an amendment – which has cross-party support – to the domestic abuse bill that is due to be debated in the House of Lords on Monday.

The legislation would require all police forces in England and Wales to record crimes which have been motivated by hatred of an individual’s gender.

Ms Creasy is also calling for the government’s Sentencing Bill to encompass her measures to make misogyny a hate crime.

She said: “New measures would mean if someone is targeting women, which we know is a longstanding issue, it will be taken into account in the sentencing in court in the same way that it is if someone is being targeted because of the colour of their skin.

“If police were to record when a hate crime toward women is carried out like they do with other hate crimes that are reported, then that builds a picture of abuse, harassment and violence which women face.

Stella Creasy and her daughter Hettie (Stella Creasy / Creative Commons)

“As we have seen this week, there is a lot of concern that when people come forward, is it not being recorded or followed up. Women fear not being taken seriously. In the police forces where misogyny is recorded as a hate crime, it has changed the culture – helping victims come forward.

“If someone exposes themselves to women repeatedly, we don’t record or track this stuff. If you are somebody who has systematically stalked women and made their lives a misery, courts should recognise this and sentence accordingly. These crimes don’t happen in a vacuum, they happen because people think women are fair game for being women.

“For many women being followed, harassed and intimidated is sadly an all too frequent experience. It is time we focused on who was doing this, rather than telling women to be careful.”

Charlotte Kneer

Ms Kneer, who runs Reigate and Banstead Women’s Aid refuge for domestic abuse victims at risk of murder in their own homes, called for investment in victims’ services as she warned the government placed too much emphasis on “fancy campaigns on social media”.

The domestic abuse survivor, whose violent partner was jailed for seven years in 2011, added: “Real investment that means if a woman picks up the phone to call, after seeing a fancy social media campaign, there will be a service which can help her. There’s no point pretending that services are there to help if they aren’t.”

Ms Kneer added that men had a part to play. She said: “Men need to stop making it all about them and stop and listen before protesting their innocence. Then, men need to start challenging other men when they hear casual sexism and misogyny. We need a societal change in our victim-blaming attitudes – that’s not just men, women too.

“Stop asking why didn’t she leave, why was she wearing that, how much did she drink – all of those lines are erasing the perpetrator. Make it about the person who is really to blame. Other big challenges are early education – teaching kids equality and healthy relationships. So many young women don’t even realise they’re in unhealthy relationships – they think it’s nice that their boyfriend is jealous and checking their phone – this is control and the beginning of a very bad road.”

Marsha De Cordova

Ms De Cordova, the shadow women and equalities minister, called for better education about sexual harassment in schools in a bid to tackle abuse of women in public.

The Labour MP for Battersea, who lives in Clapham, said: “I travel around in taxis. I spend a lot of my money just for my own personal safety. I do that because I am a woman and then there is the added layer of my visual impairment. I can’t see danger.

“I don’t go out at night on my own. As a woman, you have to adapt and have these coping mechanisms. But this is not good enough. I think more needs to be done to tackle abuse women face on and offline.

“More needs to be done to protect women and girls, such as educating pupils at school on matters of consent. Young people must be taught to respect our spaces and bodies. Also, we need education in the workplace, as especially with male-dominated sectors sexism can be very entrenched.

“And the government needs to introduce its long-awaited violence against women and girls strategy. Misogyny should be seen as a hate crime. I also feel our public spaces need to be safer. They need to be well lit. You need councils to have adequate funding to maintain areas and make sure they are well lit, but councils have had so many cuts.”

Marsha De Cordova (Getty)

Maya Tutton

Maya and Gemma Tutton, two sisters who run the Our Streets Now campaign to end street harassment, called for such behaviour to be made illegal.

Maya, who said she had suffered sexual harassment, said: “If implemented, [a new law] would help create a fundamental paradigm shift in society and make public spaces safer for women, girls and people of marginalised genders.

“We now have a wider campaign called Our Schools Now calling for pupils to be taught about public sexual harassment. We have two key goals – preventing boys from ever becoming perpetrators and teaching girls and victims of public sexual harassment it is never their fault and ensuring they have proper support at school.

“The vast majority of testimony is girls having serious threats of sexual violence against them on the way to school. We are not talking about a man saying, ‘Hi beautiful’, on the street, we are talking about serious threats of sexual violence often made at girls and non-binary people.

“Women and people of marginalised genders’ fears around public sexual harassment have been further compounded during the pandemic as less people have been on the street in lockdown and incidents have often been more threatening.”

Shaista Aziz

Ms Aziza, a women’s rights activist, argued the government needs to take into account violence committed against all women and girls to be able to properly tackle the problem, arguing that women from ethnic minority backgrounds were often overlooked.

She said: “Violence against women and girls is a pandemic. We all know this. Look at data to see the amount of women and girls killed by men every year. Also, women and girls do survive it, but in what shape and form do they survive?

“For too long parliamentarians, including women, are not advocating for all women. If you are not advocating for the rights of the most vulnerable, least protected and most marginalised then you’re not working towards making systemic change. Why are migrant women missing from the domestic abuse bill? Why is their humanity being denied by the political system in this country?

MPs must ‘advocate for all women’, says Shaista Aziza (Shaista Aziza)

“This landmark bill does not include the most vulnerable who happen to overwhelmingly be women of colour. To deny women of colour their rights and humanity is racist. Why is it when black women, women of colour, or trans women killed or harmed, there is not the same level of outrage.

“If women aren’t safe, then men aren’t safe. If women’s humanity is destroyed daily, then men’s humanity is destroyed daily, because patriarchy is reducing them to perpetrators. If we are to tackle this systemic issue, it has to be the priority of everyone.”