Home CEDAW Update Blog

News

CEDAW Update Blog

12th May 2013 Benefit for CEDAW – Launch of the CEDAW Shadow Report: House of Commons Monday 13th May 2013

Update: The shadow report has now been released, available here

It was an extremely busy weekend for those of us in the North East CEDAW (Convention to End all forms of Discrimination Against Women) Shadow Report Writing Group. We will send a group to the United Nations in Geneva this July to give evidence at the Government’s four yearly call for review on how well the UK Government is complying with the equality obligations for women and girls under CEDAW.

The July enquiry will be the culmination of approximately two years work for the small but dedicated team of us in the North East who have joined with the national working party to write the Shadow Report. The Shadow Report is our chance to “tell it like it is” and expose the Government’s report for the dishonest and non compliant document it is and to expose the violations and significant breaches of women’s international Convention rights that have been perpetrated as a result of the austerity measures, not least of all access to justice. After all if you have a right before the law, if you can’t enforce that right legally as a last resort, then any international Convention rights are meaningless.

The 12th May at the Cluny 2 was an outstanding night when we raised sufficient funds to send four additional North East delegates to the CEDAW Enquiry. It was also a fantastic night out.

MC’d by Emmerdale Actress Charlie Hardwick, she was joined by two of her Emmerdale co-stars, Chelsea Halfpenny and Laura Norton who performed a couple of songs.

The evening was kicked off with Dusky Divas, a swing band, followed by Chloe’s Promise – an amazing fiddle and song quartet from the University Folk degree course. Sandra Kerr also sang and then presented her choir, Workers Folk and kissd, Charlie Hardwick’s band just about brought the house down.

The evening was finished off by the legendary Friggin Little Bits – who did bring the house down. In between there was raffles, cakes and a lot of laughs. I want to personally thank all of the performers and organisers who gave their time for nothing so that we can all go to Geneva and really embarrass the Government for their reforms which amounts to nothing more than a decimation of access to justice, particularly for women and girls.

Following hot on the heels from this was the launch of the CEDAW Shadow Report at Portcullis House, House of Commons on the 13th May. A group of 6 of us from the North East CEDAW Working Group went down for the event and Umme Imam and Sue Robson of our group spoke to the North East case study which illustrates only too clearly the fact that the North East is being hit more than most regions by the austerity measures and that women are being impacted more than men. The North East CEDAW report will be launched on the 7th June 2013 at the Radisson Hotel in Durham. Speakers include Rebecca Blackman Woods MP, Charlotte Gauge from the women’s resource centre and members of the North East CEDAW Working Group including Shada Khan MBE, Sue Robson, Umme Imam and myself. I will be speaking about the Government’s slash and burn tactics concerning Legal Aid.

Lastly, and very urgently, please check out the link to both reports on this blog and most imperatively, the link to the new consultation document “Transforming Legal Aid” which is also available from the Ministry of Justice website. I do wonder if it should be renamed the Ministry of Injustice because pretty soon the only people who will be able to afford access to justice will be the same people who are using offshore tax havens to bank their directors bonuses.

All images are © Roweena Russell. Many thanks to her for these.

Share

Related Staff

Request a Callback