RHWACA @ Unravelling Equality - the public spending cuts on women parliamentary seminar

On the 22nd of June we attended Unravelling Equality - the public spending cuts on women parliamentary seminar which was put together by the Fawcett Society, Coventry Women's Voices, and the Centre for Human Rights in Practice and was held in the House of Commons in Westminster.

The committee room, which main wall ironically was dominated by a huge historic portrait of a men only parliament, was full with people, the majority women, from many organisations nationwide such as Women against cuts and the National Association of Widows and Disabled people against cuts.

The meeting began with a overview of the implications and impact the government's choices were going to having on women which was given by Anne Bird, the acting chief executive of the gender equality campaign organisation, Fawcett. Yesterday , Fawcett released research analysing impact of changes so far and recommendations.

There was a recognition that cuts need to be made however the the multitude of cuts mean many women will feel the impact of cuts in many ways and cuts don’t effect all women equally as Fawcett's research. One suggestion that was brought up is that before public authorities decide to make cuts they should look at where other organisations are making cuts in order to avoid completely taking away vital services that women need.

At the meeting we were provided with a summery of the key findings in the human rights equality assessment created out by the organisers of the seminar and carried out in Coventry. The report focused on eight broad areas that were going to be a negative impact on women: Employment, housing, incomes and Poverty, Education, Violence against women, Health, social care and other support services; Legal advice services and Women’s voluntary organisations. The full summery can be found here  

“Main Human rights Impacts:

Women victims and survivors of violence may be affected by cuts to voluntary sector services, cuts to the budgets of the police, Crown Prosecution Service and NHS, cuts to welfare and housing benefits and cuts to Legal Aid. These may mean less successful investigation and prosecution of offenders, more ongoing mental, physical and sexual health problems for women and more women trapped in violent relationships. This engages a broad range of human rights issues.


Cuts to Legal Aid - may leave women in vulnerable situations with no legal advice or support making it difficult in practice for them to exercise their rights and potentially violating their right to fair trial and an effective remedy.


Women’s Income - Cuts to welfare benefits and housing benefit may push women into poverty, impacting on their right to health or even their right to life.


Women Needing Care - The combined impact of changes to health and social care budgets, and cuts to welfare benefits may lead to human rights issues for women needing care. Human rights that could be engaged include the right to life, the right not to be subject to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, the right to liberty and security of person and the right to respect for private and family life .


Cumulative Impacts –There is also the potential for cumulative effects of all the cuts and changes identified in this report to lead to further human rights issues arising for women in Coventry.”


This is a section of the summery I found to be useful for the RHWACA and other anti cuts women's groups:

“ All actors who are concerned about the human rights and equality impacts of the spending cuts on women need to continue to take action to reduce and eliminate negative impacts. Actions include:

in Coventry. Coventry Women’s Voices and the Centre for Human Rights in Practice hope to continue this work with a longer term monitoring project looking at the actual impact of the cuts. We also hope to develop a guide for other organisations wishing to carry out similar projects in other areas. Funding is actively being sought for this work.

Monitoring - central government is currently moving to a different model of equality monitoring where “challenge from the public will be the key means of holding public bodies to account for their performance on equality”.3 Voluntary sector and other bodies have an important role to play in monitoring the impact of policies on the people in their communities. This is particularly true when so many Equality Impact Assessments currently undertaken by public bodies are so weak. 


Campaigning and advocacy – Voluntary and community groups can use the evidence of impact they gather through their work, and research projects such as this to increase public pressure for action to be taken to combat human rights and equality issues.


Legal Action - Where violations of equality duties and human rights obligations are identified, then cases can be brought to the courts in order to enforce obligations. There have already been successful challenges through the courts to the public sector spending cuts.”


The meeting was very informative and I think that the report gives the Royal Holloway Women Against Cuts Alliance and any other organisation like us quite clear cut objectives: Make sure that impact of university and student union gender equity policies when it comes to access to education, student life and the education given itself is recorded and monitored correctly. And to use this evidence of impact to increase public pressure for action to be taken to combat human rights and equality issues. And where violations of equality duties and human rights obligations are identified - take further action.

Susuana