The Labour MP Jess Phillips has said she is “tired that women’s safety matters so much less” than small boats in parliament, as she read a list of women killed by men over the past 12 months to a near-empty chamber.
For the past nine years, Phillips has read a list of women killed by men or where a man is the principal suspect in the UK. Describing the task as an honour, the former shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding described the task as an honour but said she had grown “weary and tired” of it.
“I am tired that women’s safety matters so much less in this place than small boats. I am tired of fighting for systematic change and being given table scraps,” said Phillips, speaking in the Commons on Thursday at a debate on language in politics before International Women’s Day on 8 March.
“Never again do I want to hear a politician say that lessons will be learned from abject failure, it is not true,” she said, adding that at least half of the women whose names she read out could have been saved.
Phillips took more than five minutes to read out the 98 names. The list, she said, was not only a testament to the women’s lives but “our collective failure”.
Phillips thanked Karen Ingala Smith for her work at Femicide Census, alongside Clarissa O’Callaghan, in gathering information about women who have been killed by men in the UK, praising them for giving “these women their stories and the elevation they deserve”.
“I, however, have grown weary of this task,” added Phillips, as she highlighted failures such as the nonexistence of women’s safety units in police forces.
“While it is an honour to do it, every year when I meet the families, many of whom are with us today, I’m reminded of why I do this,” she said. “I am weary and tired of this list though.”
It comes days after the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women and girls urged the government to act after a visit to the UK this month. Reem Alsalem said the UK’s strategies for tackling violence against women and girls fall short of the level of binding legislation and are not rooted in human rights language. Every three days, a woman is killed by a man in the UK and one in four women experience domestic violence.
“Entrenched patriarchy at almost every level of society, combined with a rise in misogyny that permeates the physical and online world, is denying thousands of women and girls across the UK the right to live in safety, free from fear and violence,” said Alsalem.
While Ingala Smith, a co-founder of The Femicide Census, said she wanted the government to take “proper action”.
“It’s so important that we look the reality of men’s fatal violence against women in the face, to acknowledge the reality of femicide and the extent of loss left behind,” she said.
The Femicide Census contacted every MP where a female constituent had been killed, urging them to call for an end to femicide in the government’s strategy to end violence against women. Ingala Smith said 92 letters were sent to MPs and six responses were received. “It hardly demonstrates a claimed commitment to tacking men’s violence against women,” she added.
Phillips urged the government to introduce a strategy for reducing femicide and told the Commons: “All of these women mattered. They need to matter much more to politics.”
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This article was amended on 29 February 2024 because an earlier version referred to Phillips as the shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding. She resigned from this position in November 2023
