International Women’s Day

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

In the first International Women’s Day debate I attended, I promised to read out the names of the women killed by men since the last International Women’s Day. Today I will honour that promise. Over the years, I have had the pleasure of meeting the families of these women, who were grateful that their loved ones were being remembered. I read these names not only to continue to highlight how male violence can terrorise ordinary women’s lives, but to pay tribute to these women and those who did not survive and give them the opportunity to be heard. The reason that these women are no longer with us is that they are hard to see, hard to hear and hard to believe. I could not do this without the brilliant work of the Counting Dead Women project and Karen Ingala Smith, who tirelessly records the lives of these women. The first name I will read out is that of a woman who was murdered just days after I rose to my feet here in this Chamber a year ago.

Their names are: Jennifer Rogers; Heather Whitbread; Michelle Savage; Diane Jones; Jenny Cronin; Leyla Mtumwa; Ourania Lambrou; Tanesha Melbourne; Tracy Stonehouse; Alexis Flynn; Lesley Potter; Viktorija Sokolova; Margaret Howlett; Maryna Kavaliauskas; Angela Craddock; Samantha Clarke; Jennifer Morgan; Julie Hunt; Hollie Kerrell; Elizabeth Lacey; Fiona Fisher; Faye Caliman; Nicola Roberts; Onees Khatoon; Jessica Patel; Rosina Coleman; Bernadette Green; Sophie Cavanagh; Angela Conoby; Christina Abbotts; Laura Mortimer; Denise Rosser; Joanne Bishop; Jill Hibberd; Andra Hilitanu; Molly Frank; Sofija Kaczan; Tina Cantello; Marie Gibson; Gitana Matukeviciene; Tracy Patsalides; Gita Suri; Klarissa-Charlene Faith; Shuren Ma; Samantha Toms; Lorna Myers; Stela Domador-Kuzma; Patricia Franks; Dawn Sturgess; Gina Ingles and her son; Riasat Bi; Katerina Makunova; Lesley Davies; Sheila Thomas; Lucy McHugh; Sam Eastwood; Karen Peter; Kelly Franklin; Katherine Kemp; Tracey Evans; Marie Walker; Simonne Kerr; Barbara Davison; Kaltoun Saleh; Carole Harrison; Sharon Perrett; Raneem Oudeh; Khaola Saleem; Celia Levitt; Julie Owens; Joan Hoggett; Memunatu Warne; Kylie Dembrey; Susan Gyde; Kay Martin; Cristina Magda-Calancea; Frances Hubbard; Sandra Zmijan; Margaret Harris; Sharon Harris; Jeanna Maher; Glenda Jackson; Avan Najmadeen; Natalie Saunders; Sarah Wellgreen; Nazia Ali; Teresa Garner; Lynn Forde; Mavis Bran; Sheena Jackson; Fiona McDonald; Natalie Smith; Tanseen Sheikh; Sana Muhammad; Pauline Kilkenny; Katarzyna Paszek; Maureen Watkins; Jacqueline Allen; Samantha Gosney; Karen Cleary-Brown; Barbara Findley; Grace Millane; Maureen Whale; Sally Cavender; June Knight; Keely McGrath; Poppy Devey-Waterhouse; Lana Owen; Marissa Aldrich; Parwin Quriashi; Angela Mittal; June Jones; Joy Morgan; Lisa Jane McArity; Charlotte Huggins; Jay Edmunds; Simbiso Aretha Moula; Sarah Ashraf; Asma Begum; Luz Isaza Villegas; Leanne Unsworth; Christy Walshe; Alison Hunt; Mary Annie Sowerby; Regina Marilyn Paul; Margaret Smythe; Mary Page; Rosie Darbyshire; Aliny Mendes; and Sarah Henshaw.

I could feel the nervousness in the room that I would not finish reading the list within seven minutes. That is how we should feel every single minute of every day—nervous that one of our constituents will wake up dead. The fear and tension that we felt in our bodies that I would not get through the list and would be made to sit down is what victims of domestic violence feel every minute that they walk around their houses. The second they wake up in the morning, they feel frightened and have to walk on awkward eggshells all day long. These women need us in this place to hear their names and hear their stories, so that we can change and make it so that next year’s list might at least be a little bit shorter.