International Women’s Day: Language in Politics

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Commons Chamber

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

I rise, as I do at this time of the year, to remember the women killed by men in the last year. This is the ninth year that I have read out the names of women murdered by men. I did it originally in partnership with Karen Ingala Smith, because we were desperate to highlight the patterns of these killings; the epidemic of men’s violence against women and girls has not abated.

I pay credit to Karen, who scours the pages of local papers trying to find the details in each case. I think that, in the last nine years, this act of memorial has raised the profile of killed women. Today we are more likely to see such cases reported in the national media, and over the years the country has grown more activist in this space. The Femicide Census has been born—where the results of Karen’s diligent volunteering, alongside that of Clarrie O’Callaghan, have turned into a growing resource for academics, journalists and policymakers. Karen and Clarrie deserve all the praise in the world for holding the line, never faltering wearily on the path, to give these women and their stories the elevation that they deserve.

I, however, have grown weary of this task. While it is an honour to do it, and every year when I meet the families—many of whom are with us today—I am reminded of why I do it, I am weary and tired of this list. The first year I did it, I felt overwhelmed, and then I grew used to it; but now I have grown so sad that every year there are the same cases of systems failures, prison recalls not followed up, and children’s services and family court decisions leaving women at risk, and of the fact that not every single police force in our country has a specific women’s safety unit, let alone the fact that none of them does.

I am tired of the sticking plasters, of flee funds instead of welfare reforms that would stop victims ending up destitute in the first place. I am sick of this review of some harm or other, and that review of sexual exploitation, being placed on a shelf and never driven forward. I am tired of hearing, on this one day each year, Ministers announcing a little bit of this or a little bit of that. I am tired of the fact that women’s safety matters so much less in this place than small boats. I am tired of fighting for systemic change and being given table scraps. Never again do I want to hear a politician say that lessons will be learned from abject failure, because it is not true. This list is no longer just a testament to these women’s lives; it is a testament to our collective failure. At least half the names I am about to read out are of women who could have been saved.

Here is this year’s list: Alesia Nazarova; Beryl Purdy; Holly Bramley; Susan Turner; Bernadette Rosario; Sara Bateman; an unnamed woman; Lucy Dee; Maia Dee; Rina Dee; Elise Mason; Marelle Sturrock; Suma Begum; Johanita Kossiwa Dogbey; Maya Devi; Suzanne Henry; Georgina Dowey; Holly Sanchez; Hayley Burke; Katie Higton; Kelly Pitt; Christine Sargent; Danielle Davidson; Stephanie Hodgkinson; Sandra Harriott; Fiona Robinson; Debra Cantrell; Emily Sanderson; Michelle Hodgkinson; Chloe Mitchell; Chloe Bashford; Tejaswini Kontham; Grace O’Malley-Kumar; Monika Wlodarczyk; Kinga Roskinska; Natasha Morais; Felicia Cadore; Nelly Akomah; Sarah Henshaw; Elizabeth Richings; Lynette Nash; Elizabeth Watson; Carol Baxter; Fiona Holm; Colette Law; Rose Jobson; Ann Blackwood; Hazel Huggins; Sharon Gordon; Claire Orrey; Christine Emmerson; Kelli Bothwell; Liwam Bereket; Chintzia McIntyre; Amy-Rose Wilson; Gabriela Kosilko; Claire Knights; Nhi Muoi Wai; Carrie Slater; Susanne Galvin; Helen Clarke; Ruth Hufton; Elianne Andam; Charlene Mills; Alison Dodds; Deborah Boulter; Celia Geyer; Mandy Barnett; Denise Steeves; Mehak Sharma; Caroline Gore; Sian Hammond; Michele Faiers; Christie Eugene; Perseverance Ncube; Sharon Butler; Dawn Robertson; Victoria Greenwood; Salam Alshara; Kiesha Donaghy; Alison Bowen; Taiwo Abodunde; Milica Zilic; Lianne Gordon; Kamaljeet Mahey; Glenna Siviter; Kacey Clarke; Keotshepile Isaacs; Tia Simmonds; Maya Bracken; Alison McLaughlin; Tara Kershaw; Kanticha Sukpengpanao; Claudia Kambanza; Michele Romano; Claire Leveque; Sam Varley; and an unnamed woman, who was 40 years old, from Beaconsfield.

As has now become customary, the families of women killed by men’s abuse who would not have appeared on this list, or who died before I started the custom of the listing, have begun to get in touch with me to ask for those women’s names to be read. I want to remember Melissa Mathieson, murdered in 2014, who was housed in allegedly supportive accommodation for people with autism together with a man who was a known risk to women; she had complained about him, but was not protected against him. We remember Melissa, and know that it brings shame on this House that, across the country, we are turning a blind eye to safety issues around women in state-funded accommodation. There will be another Melissa in dangerous accommodation as we speak. We must not mourn; we must act.

We also remember Eileen Mary Thomson, who died in 2017. At the age of 70, she was killed by her husband in a sheltered housing complex.

I was approached by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), who asked me to remember Rita Roberts, whose family—his constituents—were recently told of her murder in Belgium 32 years ago, in 1992. Her body had gone unidentified until last year. We remember Rita Roberts and cases like hers, which is why every year we include on the list women whose names we do not know. They matter.

All of these women mattered. They need to matter much more to politics, and I urge the Government again, as I have done for years, to have a strategy for reducing femicide. Warm words, with no political priority, will never make this list shorter.