International Women’s Day

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is now two years since I delivered my maiden speech in Parliament during a similar debate on International Women’s Day. In it, I paid tribute to our local history of women’s struggle for social justice, which continues to be a daily source of inspiration. To quote the amazing Greta Thunberg, International Women’s Day

“is for protesting against and raising awareness about the fact that people are still being oppressed or treated differently because of their gender”,

and we do still have so much to protest against.

Today’s debate comes as the cost of living crisis is fostering a sense of injustice, uncertainty and anxiety across the UK, set against the brutal backdrop of the pandemic and a decade of Conservative austerity. We know that the covid-19 pandemic means women have been more likely than men to lose their jobs or to reduce their paid work, given that they are more frequently employed in sectors that have been directly disrupted by lockdown and social distancing measures.

Women—particularly black, Asian and minority ethnic women—continue to account for about two thirds of low earners and are more likely to be working on zero-hour or part-time contracts. The increased overlap of working and caring responsibilities has added to the ongoing reality that caring continues to be a major factor in women’s ability to participate on equal terms. To put it simply, women still face structural economic inequality throughout their lives, and this intersects with other structures of inequality, including race and disability.

We also know that violence against women, including trans women, continues to blight our society. Women die—and they are dying—every day while support services continue to be cut. I know personally that the impact of domestic abuse on the mental health of survivors can be truly devastating, yet there continue to be many barriers and many challenges facing survivors when they try to access help. We know that ethnic minority survivors of domestic abuse suffer for one and a half times longer before seeking help. As such, we urgently need funding for services, particularly specialist community services and specialist refuges.

As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on domestic violence and abuse, I am delighted to be working with Women’s Aid and others on their campaign #DeserveToBeHeard and to argue for domestic abuse to be recognised as a public health priority. Yet while the Government invariably use the language of protecting women, their programme of austerity, real-terms cuts to benefits and pensions, and assaults on civil liberties explicitly target those of us most at risk—migrants, as well as black, Asian and minority ethnic women, and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.

The cruel “no recourse to public funds” condition prevents women from accessing help when most at need, and the hostile and racist immigration system tightens around women facing deportation, imprisons women in unacceptable conditions and even sees women drown at sea when they try to seek safety. I plead with the Government today: please scrap the inhumane Nationality and Borders Bill, which risks criminalising refugees, including Ukrainian refugees, who arrive in the UK through an irregular route. Instead, the Government should ensure that there are always safe routes for those seeking sanctuary and asylum.

Too often, under this Government the very institutions that are meant to protect us are in fact failing us, over and over again. Women are told we must forget that only a year ago, Sarah Everard was killed by a serving police officer. We are expected to ignore that there is clearly a problem within the police regarding racism and misogyny which needs urgently to be addressed. Structural racism has long been identified in the police, with the 2017 Lammy review finding that arrest rates are twice as high for ethnic minority women compared with white women. That has been found to lead to increased distrust of the official support services among ethnic minority communities, leading ethnic minority women to be less likely to report experiences of violence and receive support.

International Women’s Day must be about highlighting those ongoing injustices, but more than that it is about pointing the way to overcoming such wrongs. Although International Women’s Day has a historical association with recognising women’s oppression and exploitation, it is also a time when we highlight victories that have been won. Whether that is standing up against violence and austerity, struggling for better working conditions or demanding equal pay, women have always played a vital role in the struggle for social justice, by rallying, organising, protesting, inspiring millions of us, and winning against the odds. That includes industrial action by match workers at the Bryant and May factory in 1888, the historic strike action by female sewing machinists at the Dagenham Ford motor company in 1968, Jayaben Desai leading a walk-out at the Grunwick film processing laboratory in 1976, and Southall Black Sisters being at the forefront of challenging domestic and gender-related violence locally and nationally for decades. Yes, today is about inspiring us to overcome, and there is lots to inspire us.

I will finish by highlighting the victory secured by Unite the Union members working for Barts Health NHS Trust this month, after strike action in which black, Asian and minority ethnic women in particular played a crucial role. I applaud their bravery and determination in fighting exploitation, standing together day in, day out, in the cold and rain, demanding the change that they deserved. That landmark win sends a message to all that pay gaps and low pay are utterly unacceptable. It shows how to challenge injustice and inequality. The message is clearer than ever before: a woman’s place is in the political struggle, in her union and, yes, on the picket lines.