Free shipping on our posters until the end of March!
Did you know that it’s International Women’s Month? Get free shipping on our posters until March 31st, wherever you are! Just enter the coupon “IWM13” at the checkout.
These posters are designed by Coco Edwards on behalf of Imkaan. We have created these posters not only to celebrate and demystify black feminism, but also to revive the conversation.
We have selected images and quotes which reflect the diversity and relevance of the movement, as well as the purpose of Imkaan.
For each red poster sold, £2 will be donated to Million Women Rise.
Each poster is printed on high quality 200 gsm paper.
For a limited time, you can purchase Resistance, Equality and Respect as a set for £10.
We are pleased to announce the official launch of our online store!
Our series of posters on Black Feminism are now available to purchase here.
These posters are designed by Coco Edwards on behalf of Imkaan. We have created these posters not only to celebrate and demystify black feminism, but also to revive the conversation.
We have selected images and quotes which reflect the diversity and relevance of the movement, as well as the purpose of Imkaan.
For each red poster sold, £2 will be donated to Million Women Rise.
Each poster is printed on high quality 200 gsm paper.
For a limited time, you can purchase Resistance, Equality and Respect as a set for £15.
Cameron is repeating the housing benefit myth - The statistic Cameron ignores: only one in eight claimants is unemployed.
Having long abandoned the pretence that “we’re all in this together”, David Cameron is preparing yet another raid on the welfare budget. In a speech today, he will announce plans to abolish housing benefit for under-25s and will indicate that the government is considering “time-limiting” Jobseeker’s Allowance, reducing the new benefits cap to £22,000 and restricting payments for large families (specifically, limiting child benefit to three children, although this proposal will not be mentioned in the speech).
As previously signalled by George Osborne, the cuts are designed to save the government £10bn but so far Cameron hasn’t chosen to focus on the alleged savings. Rather, he has argued that the plans are necessary to reverse a “culture of entitlement”. In his pre-speech interview with the Mail on Sunday, Cameron claimed that housing benefit “discourages” young people from working:
A couple will say, ‘We are engaged, we are both living with our parents, we are trying to save before we get married and have children and be good parents.’
But how does it make us feel, Mr Cameron, when we see someone who goes ahead, has the child, gets the council home, gets the help that isn’t available to us?
One is trapped in a welfare system that discourages them from working, the other is doing the right thing and getting no help.
With those words, Cameron perpetuated the biggest myth about housing benefit: that it is a benefit for the unemployed. The truth is that just one in eight claimants is out of work (not a statistic that you’ll find reported in most papers). The majority of those who claim housing benefit, including the under-25s, do so to compensate for substandard wages and extortionate rents. A recent study by The Building and Social Housing Foundation showed that 93 per cent of new housing benefit claims made between 2010 and 2011 were made by households containing at least one employed adult.
It is meaningless of Cameron to claim that the housing benefit budget is “too large” without considering why. The inflated budget, which will reach £23.2bn this year, is the result of a conscious choice by successive governments to subsidise private landlords rather than invest in affordable social housing. Yet rather than addressing the problem of stagnant wages and excessive rents, Cameron, in a bid to appease his querulous party, has chosen to squeeze the already squeezed.
That he should do so by abolishing housing benefit for under-25s is particularly egregious. Of the 380,000 young people who claim the benefit, a significant number do so because they have been thrown out by their parents. As Shelter notes, “Last year nearly 10,000 households in priority need were recognised as homeless after they were thrown out by their parents. Many more won’t have shown up in the statistics and will have resorted to sofa surfing, hostels or at worst the streets.”
Others may be unable to live at home after their parents divorced or downsized or, as Petra Davies previously noted on the site, may have been rejected due to their sexuality. As she noted, around 25 per cent of the young homeless population in urban areas is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.
But such objections will do little to deter Cameron’s drive to shrink the state. With his latest attack on the working poor, he has finally outed himself as a compassionless Conservative.
Reflections and Rants: More Random Thoughts on Forced Marriage
This government has stated that it is taking forced marriage seriously. As an activist, I am of course happy about this, as it feels as if they are making an an effort to address what is a complex and even life-destroying issue. Yet it’s not all celebrations in my world. Perhaps my activism leaves me sceptical on occasion, perhaps I don’t trust governments, whatever it is I find myself worrying about where we are going with this. I am excited about awareness raising, about prevention and definitely about strengthening accountability in a safeguarding context. I am not so keen on this creation of a separate criminal offence. I have a few niggles, some of them I’ve started scribbling about as they were literally keeping me awake….
Victim Empowerment or Passing the Buck?
We generally don’t ask children to use the law to negotiate with their parents in order to prevent child abuse. We don’t expect (adult) women to use the law to negotiate with violent partners. Yet one of the arguments being used to support the creation of a separate forced marriage offence is this notion of victim empowerment i.e. that young people (many of whom are children) will be able to negotiate with their parents to stop their parents from forcing them into a marriage. Now that is all well and good when it works, but let’s not forget that WE have a duty to safeguard children. It’s our responsibility, not theirs. This law might help parents negotiate with extended family members, it might help older siblings protect younger children - but let’s not use this law to put even more pressure on BME children - we already do that with FGM. We must also be mindful that, in the reality of many forced marriage cases there are several parties involved in the process of coercion, control and violence. Are we asking young women to negotiate with all of these people, when we wouldn’t expect an adult woman to do that with an individual man?
Whose Voice?
Survivors of forced marriage are not a homogenous group. They are individuals, from a diverse range of ‘communities’. Some survivors support the creation of a separate offence, others don’t. In this debate, the voices perhaps most comfortably heard have been the ones that support the creation of a new offence. This of course makes sense as forced marriage is abusive and is clearly a violation of human rights. A separate criminal offence offers a seemingly good solution. But let’s just make sure that we also hear the voices that are worried about the impact that this will have on victims and potential victims. Let’s also listen to those survivors who want the government to do something, but are anxious that this is not that something. I work for an organisation that represents some of the voices that are less likely to be heard i.e. the women that haven’t made it on to the pages of the Daily Mail or The Guardian or on to our television screens. Yet those women too have their stories of survival. My colleagues and I will do all that we can to support them to be heard..after all they too deserve an audience.
Sending a Strong Message?I’ve been really interested in what different groups of young people think. Interestingly enough, some grassroots organisations who interviewed young people said that when they asked them about creating a separate offence they said ‘yes’. When asked if they would use it, those same young people said ‘no’ as they would not want to be involved in prosecuting their parents. When asked why a separate offence is needed then, they said ‘to let people know it is wrong’. So the question is then, why aren’t we getting that message out anyway?
Imkaan’s statement in response to the recent government announcement on forced marriage.
Imkaan welcomes the government’s commitment to addressing forced marriage, including the announcement that over £500,000 of funding will be made available over the next three years to support work in this important area. The signing of the Council of Europe convention on Combating and Preventing Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (CAHVIO) sends an important message that violence against women and girls (VAWG) is both unacceptable and a priority in the UK.
Imkaan’s Executive Director, Marai Larasi states; “We are pleased that some of the government’s proposals begin to address the concerns highlighted by organisations such as ours over a number of years. For example the proposed work in schools, the strengthening of safeguarding mechanisms and the roll out of training are important steps in the right direction”.
However, like many of the Black, Minority Ethnic and Refugee (BMER) women’s services that we represent we are disappointed that the government has chosen to create a separate criminal offence of forced marriage rather than strengthen existing legislation. As is the case with any area of work, prosecution cannot work on its own and is not enough. It has to run parallel with other sources of support if we want more women and girls to come forward for help and get timely and appropriate assistance and advice.
Sumanta Roy, Imkaan’s Policy and Research Manager states; “It is crucial that support is available whether or not they go through civil or criminal processes. Furthermore the civil and criminal processes are likely to be more effective if women and girls are given appropriate specialist support.”
Going forward, the government must ensure that agencies prioritise:
- Prevention, and ensuring that work across schools is consistent e.g. independent schools need to engage.
- Crisis support. This is currently delivered primarily by BMER services who understand the specific risks being faced by women and girls and these services are often the main sources of support for victims. Yet many of these services are facing deep cuts and are struggling to manage the increased demand for their services.
- On-going support and resettlement, to ensure that victims are able to rebuild their lives.
It is critical that women and girls have access to a robust support package across the UK. Imkaan’s own report Missing Link, produced for the Mayor of London points to inadequacies in many London boroughs, where women and girls at risk of, or going through a forced marriage cannot access the specialist support and advice they need from women’s organisations– as they simply do not exist in their area.
Imkaan intends to monitor the impact of the changes and our priority will be to work with the government and other partners to ensure that vulnerable women and girls get the short and long-term support, advice and protection they require. The minimum standards that we are currently developing for work on issues such as forced marriage will help to ensure that service providers offer consistent, high quality support to vulnerable women and girls.
For more information, contact the office on 020 7250 3933, or admin@imkaan.org.uk
Source: imkaan.org.uk
