International Women’s Day

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing the debate. International Women’s Day is supposed to be a celebration, but even before the last 24 hours—given, for example, the progress of the Scottish Parliament’s inquiries into the handling of harassment complaints and, more generally, the notably more negative impact of the pandemic on women across so many areas of their lives—it has not really felt like something worth celebrating.

Mr Speaker reminded us earlier today that it would be inappropriate for us to comment on the live investigation in relation to the tragic disappearance of Sarah Everard. I cannot help but reflect that, of course, it is not all men; but particularly where men in public positions of trust are guilty of committing acts of violence against women, it could be any man, and women feel compelled to act accordingly. I retweeted a tweet expressing that sentiment last night, and my 16-year-old daughter liked it. She never likes my tweets. The fact that she chose to like that one makes me incredibly sad.

I also reflect on my own time in the police service. I was a trained sexual offences officer. I recall that early in the 2000s, my force ran a bus advert in Edinburgh advising women to think about what they drank and who they were with when socialising—basically a plan to prevent sexual assault. In my early 20s, as I was then, I probably thought that that was reasonable. It shows how conditioned we all are.

As part of my sexual offences role, I was responsible for taking the victim’s statement and then attending any medical examination. Securing evidence and productions and maintaining a chain of evidence is crucial, but I also witnessed the impact of that initial investigation on the women involved. Time is a factor—the length of time for a sexual offences officer to travel to wherever the assault was taking place, to take a statement, to travel to the place where the medical exam would happen and for the exam itself, with women not being able to wash or change in that time, in order to preserve evidence. It is an incredibly invasive process. No matter how empathetic the investigating officer is—and I like to think that I always was—they are not your friend; they are not your family member. The real tragedy is that, a lot of the time, all that comes to absolutely nothing. And of course, that is just in the cases of those women who feel able to contact the police and disclose in the first place.

So how do we choose to challenge? The challenge to the Government is: pass the Domestic Abuse Bill, which has been in the offing for four years; legislate to make misogyny a hate crime; and make sure that those occupying positions of trust are people we really can trust. Men need to step up. They need to be active allies. International Women’s Day is just as much about my 13-year-old son as it is about my 16 year-old daughter.

The final challenge is to ourselves. We need to do much more to ensure that when we talk about women and about discrimination and violence, we are inclusive. Wenjing Lin, 16, died on Friday at her family’s takeaway restaurant in Wales. The man accused of her murder appeared in court this morning. At the root of much of our debate around single-sex spaces is the fear of sexual violence perpetrated by men. Changing men’s behaviour changes that debate, and on International Women’s Day, that is a challenge that faces us all.