#BringTheNoise — Women’s March London
EVAW Coalition — Dialogue series — How does U.S. Policy affect the U.K. and the rest of the world?
This week Women’s March Global will be highlighting key supporting organisations supporting in #BringTheNoise — a peaceful march and rally by Women’s March London. We are discussing with three organisations, their view on why this rally is important and how the policy decisions in the U.S. affect the U.K. and the rest of the world.
On Friday, July, 13th, the first day of the US President’s much-discussed visit to the UK, a coalition of organisations will march in protest over the inhumane, divisive, misogynistic and discriminatory policies and rhetoric of the Trump/Pence administration that have resulted in the Muslim ban, the recent scandal of caging and separating children from their parents at borders, mockery of disabled citizen, regression in respect for women’s rights, and its hostile stance on LGBTQIA+ rights.
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Anna Kharbanda is the Head of Communications at the End Violence Against Women Coalition.
Can you share with us the work you are doing at End Violence Against Women in the U.K?
Anna Kharbanda: Yes. My name is Anna Kharbanda and I work at the End Violence Against Women Coalition. We are leading coalition specialist women support services. We have researchers, activist, survivors, and we are all working together to end violence against women and girls. We are comprised of about 80 women organisations. Many of these are service delivery — grass roots offering lots of services for women who’ve experienced violence including domestic violence, sexual violence, and FGM. These are the main areas we are focused on.
How many women a year are you interacting with and helping? How many women do you see that need your services?
As a coalition (EVAW) we are the lobbying, campaigning arm of all of these grassroots organisations . We’re the ones putting the pressure on government. We’re putting pressure on things in the legal system. We’re trying to get stories into the media by coordinating activity on social platforms.
The grassroots organisations in our coalition are doing all the hard front line day to day work with hundreds and thousands of women across the country. What we’re definitely seeing is with the #MeToo movement there has been an increase in demand for services such as rape crisis services for example.
We’re very proud to be an coalition that includes lots of grassroots minority ethnic groups. Migrant women, for example, have no legal access to public funds — under the current immigration policy that we have in this country these women are abused by men who are actually using the hostile immigration policy to further that abuse.
What we’re finding is that due to the fear of deportation many migrant women do not report the abuse. That women’s immigration is stated over their safety and over their protection is the very reason why this moment is particularly important for marginalised and vulnerable women.
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Why is EVAW joining in support with Women’s March London #BringTheNoise in response to Trump’s Visit 13th of July?
It’s absolutely essential for everybody, especially women, to have a zero tolerance attitude to Trump’s misogyny and racism. He’s made light of his own locker room chat, which minimises the behaviour which harms millions of women every year and makes excuses for horrible attitudes towards women and our bodies.
That kind of minimising of women day to day, every day sexism and misogyny isn’t something that should be ignored or tolerated. When it is, it becomes normalised and the danger of that is that people who hold racist and misogynistic views can take that as a license for them to go onto the street and say whatever they want to ethnic minority groups or just any woman walking down the street.
We have seen that most men and women in this country do face that double threat of racism and misogyny. For a leader to hold those opinions and to be in such a privileged position of power, running arguably the most powerful country in the world, it’s absolutely essential that every single person who does not hold those views to shout from the rafters and use their voice to speak up and speak up for women all across the world.
Globally the policies made in the U.S. do have global impact. The Global Gag rule is stopping funding towards very essential and important medical reproductive services for women in the global South and the developing world. We know that healthcare is one of the most underfunded areas globally. For Trump to actually actively introduce this policy, which stops women from having these reproductive rights, not only is damaging towards women but also it’s damaging the whole entire community and devastates entire communities in the developing world.
The immigration policy of the current U.S. administration is just an absolute disgrace. It’s tearing families apart and it’s just sending a message that it’s okay to be misogynistic and it’s okay to be a racist. It’s absolutely vital for those of us who are living in the UK who are able to use our voices to amplify, that this is absolutely unacceptable. It’s outrageous. It’s disgusting and we will not tolerate it. It is absolutely crucial that everybody uses their voice and takes to the street to protest against Trump.
The fact that you have so many different movements that are going to be coming together on this day and so many different organisations, what does that say?
It’s so, so important and it’s a wonderful thing to see, because I think that the more voices we add and the more unified our voice is, the stronger we are together as a unit.
It’s really, really important that we all send a huge signal to the U.S. administration that we do not tolerate racism. That we do not tolerate misogyny. That it is unacceptable and that we think that his policies toward women, abortion, immigration are entirely unacceptable and they do not speak for hundreds … tens of thousands of people in the UK and across the world. I think it’s extremely powerful when you have all of those voices together.
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The End Violence Against Women Coalition is the UK’s largest coalition of organisations working to eradicate violence against women and girls; members include Fawcett Society, Forward, Imkaan, Jewish Women’s Aid, London Black Women’s Project, Rape Crisis England and Wales, Refuge, Respect, Southall Black Sisters, Standing Together, Women in Prison, Women’s Aid, WRC, The Women’s Institute and the TUC.The End Violence Against Women Coalition
Find out more information on the 13th July Event in London here.
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