Founded | November 2014 |
---|---|
Type | Activist group |
Focus | Anti-austerity, Feminism, Intersectionality, Domestic violence, Trans feminism, Black feminism, Working class feminism |
Location | |
Method | Demonstration, Direct action, Civil disobedience, Community work |
Website | http://www.sistersuncut.org |
Sisters Uncut describe themselves as a British feminist direct action group that is opposed to cuts to UK government services for domestic violence victims. [1] It was founded in November 2014, and came to international prominence in October 2015 for a protest on the red carpet at the London premiere of the film Suffragette. [2] The group identify as revolutionary feminists and police and prison abolitionists, and is open to women (including trans and intersex women), nonbinary, agender and gender variant people. [3] The group aims to organise non-hierarchically and uses consensus decision-making. [3] Sisters Uncut originated in London but has regional groups throughout the UK [4] including Manchester and Leeds. [5]
Under the UK Coalition government of 2010-2015, funding for domestic violence services was cut dramatically, leading to concern from groups such as the Women's Aid Federation of England that the cuts could leave victims of abuse with no ability to escape their abusers. [6] Sisters Uncut was founded in November 2014 in response to these concerns. The group was founded by women from the anti-austerity direct action group UK Uncut, and its name is a reference to that group. [7] [8]
Sisters Uncut is a feminist organisation, and it engages in direct action to attain its goals. [9] [1] [10] They have been described as "an anti-abuse campaign group". [11] [12] The organisation opposes putting undercover police in bars and clubs. [13]
Sisters Uncut takes the position that the criminalisation of prostitution puts sex workers in more danger. They also oppose the Nordic model in which only buyers of sex are prosecuted, believing that it reduces customers and income to sex workers. [14] [15]
Shon Faye describes Sisters Uncut as a "feminist organisation fighting for better provision for women in domestic violence". [16]
The group has become known for high-profile direct action which highlights and challenges UK government policy that affects survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Protests by the group have included:
Dame Vera Baird is a British barrister and politician who has held roles as a government minister, police and crime commissioner, and Victims' Commissioner for England and Wales.
Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey is a British ex-feminist, men's rights activist and advocate against domestic violence, and novelist. She is known for having started the first and currently the largest domestic violence shelter in the modern world, Refuge, then known as Chiswick Women's Aid, in 1971.
Take Back the Night is an international event and non-profit organization with the mission of ending sexual, relationship, and domestic violence in all forms. Hundreds of events are held in over 30 countries annually. Events often include marches, rallies and vigils intended as a protest and direct action against rape and other forms of sexual, relationship and domestic violence. In 2001, a group of women who had participated in the earliest Take Back the Night marches, came together to form the Take Back the Night Foundation in support of the events throughout the United States and the world.
Femicide or feminicide is a term for the killing of females because of their sex. In 1976, the feminist author Diana E. H. Russell first implicitly defined the term as a hate killing of females by males but then went on to redefine it as "the killing of females by males because they are female" in later years. Femicide can be perpetrated by either sex but is more often committed by men. This is most likely due to unequal power between men and women as well as harmful gender roles, stereotypes, or social norms.
Reclaim the Night is a movement started in Leeds in 1977 as part of the Women's Liberation Movement. Marches demanding that women be able to move throughout public spaces at night took place across England until the 1990s. Later, the organisation was revived and sponsors annual and national marches against rape and violence against women.
Scottish Women's Aid is the lead domestic abuse organisation in Scotland.
Domestic violence is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. Domestic violence is often used as a synonym for intimate partner violence, which is committed by one of the people in an intimate relationship against the other person, and can take place in relationships or between former spouses or partners. In its broadest sense, domestic violence also involves violence against children, parents, or the elderly. It can assume multiple forms, including physical, verbal, emotional, economic, religious, reproductive, financial abuse, or sexual abuse. It can range from subtle, coercive forms to marital rape and other violent physical abuse, such as choking, beating, female genital mutilation, and acid throwing that may result in disfigurement or death, and includes the use of technology to harass, control, monitor, stalk or hack. Domestic murder includes stoning, bride burning, honor killing, and dowry death, which sometimes involves non-cohabitating family members. In 2015, the United Kingdom's Home Office widened the definition of domestic violence to include coercive control.
Julie Bindel is an English radical feminist writer. She is also co-founder of the law reform group Justice for Women, which has aimed to help women who have been prosecuted for assaulting or killing violent male partners.
The history of the Metropolitan Police in London is long and complex, with many different events taking place between its inception in 1829 and the present day.
Refuge is a United Kingdom charity providing specialist support for women and children experiencing domestic violence. It was founded by author and Men's Rights Activist Erin Pizzey. Refuge provides a national network of specialist services, including emergency refuge accommodation (refuges), community outreach, independent domestic violence advocacy (IDVAs), culturally specific services and a team of child support workers. Refuge also runs the Freephone 24-Hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline is only available for women.
The anti-austerity movement in the United Kingdom saw major demonstrations throughout the 2010s in response to Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government's austerity measures which saw significant reductions in local council budgets, increasing of university tuition fees and reduction of public spending on welfare, education, health and policing, among others. Anti-austerity protests became a prominent part of popular demonstrations across the 2010s, particularly the first half of the decade.
Suffragette is a 2015 British historical drama film about women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, directed by Sarah Gavron and written by Abi Morgan. The film stars Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie Duff, Ben Whishaw, and Meryl Streep.
Women Against Rape (WAR) is a UK organisation founded in 1976. In their original Statement of Aims, they demanded: recognition of rape of every kind; not just by strangers but by husbands, fathers and stepfathers. They demanded that every woman must have the financial independence to escape rape and domestic violence. They said victims are entitled to compensation, along with victims of other violent crimes, from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. They also said that all women should be entitled to justice, and not be "put on trial". WAR provides support for anyone fighting for justice in their own case, and that casework shapes its campaigns.
#SayHerName is a social movement that seeks to raise awareness for Black women victims of police brutality and anti-Black violence in the United States. The movement's name was created by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF). #SayHerName aims to highlight the gender-specific ways in which Black women are disproportionately affected by fatal acts of racial injustice. In an effort to create a large social media presence alongside existing racial justice campaigns, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackGirlsMatter, the AAPF coined the hashtag #SayHerName in December 2014.
Elizabeth A. Kelly CBE is a British professor and director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU), London Metropolitan University, former head of the, now defunct, Women's National Commission, and co-chair, along with Marai Larasi, of the End Violence Against Women Coalition.
Lois Galgay Reckitt was an American feminist and activist. Called "one of the most prominent advocates in Maine for abused women", she served as executive director of Family Crisis Services in Portland, Maine, for more than three decades.
Domestic violence and abuse in the United Kingdom are a range of abusive behaviours that occur within relationships. Domestic violence or abuse can be physical, psychological, sexual, financial or emotional. In UK laws and legislation, the term "domestic abuse" is commonly used to encompass various forms of domestic violence. Some specific forms of domestic violence and abuse are criminal offences. Victims or those at risk of domestic abuse can also be provided with remedies and protection via civil law.
On the evening of 3 March 2021, 33-year-old Sarah Everard was kidnapped in South London, England, as she was walking home to the Brixton Hill area from a friend's house near Clapham Common. She was stopped by off-duty Metropolitan Police constable Wayne Couzens, who identified himself as a police officer, handcuffed her, and placed her in his car before transporting Everard to Dover. Couzens subsequently raped and strangled Everard, before burning her body and disposing of her remains in a pond in nearby woodland.
Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were two sisters who were stabbed to death by Danyal Hussein in Fryent Country Park, Kingsbury, north-west London, England, on 6 June 2020. The reporting and investigation of their killings provoked widespread discussion of women's safety, police misconduct and systemic racism. It also provoked discussion of the access to violent religious material available online, which was a motive of the killer.
Karen Ingala Smith is CEO of nia, a domestic and sexual violence charity working to end violence against women and girls, based in London, UK.