WUNRN
UK - WOMEN'S EQUALITY & RIGHTS
CHALLENGED BY AUSTERITY MEASURES - REPORT
The Fawcett
Society says years of progress on equality, including workforce opportunities,
above, are now being dismantled. Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters
4 November
2011 - Women's financial security and human rights are under
attack on a scale not seen in "living memory" due to the coalition's
austerity measures, according to a report released today.
Backed by more than 20 charities,
unions and academics, the report by the Fawcett Society shows how the cuts are
pushing women out of the workforce, driving down their income and undermining
hard-won access to justice and protection from violence.
The report,
A Life Raft for Women's Equality, offers key policy
recommendations to reverse the impact the cuts will have on women's jobs, benefits and key services as
state services are withdrawn.
The report is published on the
same day that the home secretary, Theresa May – who is also minister for women
and equalities – outlines the government's approach to women and the economy.
May will announce an ambitious
plan to recruit and train 5,000 volunteer business mentors to help women who
want to start or grow their own businesses.
"Business people tell us
that they want to take advice from other business people. So the business
mentors will be experienced individuals who can provide tailored advice and
support. They will be a huge help to women entrepreneurs," May is to say.
Anna Bird, acting chief executive
of the Fawcett Society, said: "Our report identifies a series of targeted
and achievable policy measures that could be adopted by, or at, the 2012
budget, which together offer a life raft for women's equality – and never has
the need been so great.
"Women have not faced a
greater threat to their financial security and rights in living memory. Decades
of steady, albeit slow, progress on equality is being dismantled, as cuts to
women's jobs and the benefits and services they rely on, turn back time on
women's equality."
The number of women out of work
is at a 23-year high, with cutbacks in the public sector hitting women
particularly hard: two-thirds of the 130,000 jobs lost in local authorities
since the first quarter of 2010 were held by women.
"Women up and down the
country are experiencing greater hardship. For those families affected, the
cuts to women's jobs, services and benefits will represent a personal loss,"
said Bird. "But we must add to this the cost to wider society as women's
opportunities are scaled back.
"Fewer
women working, a widening gap in pay between women and men,
entrenchment of outdated gender roles at work and at
home, and women being forced into a position where they must increasingly rely
on a main breadwinner or the state for financial subsidy – this is the picture
that emerges when the many policies of economic austerity are stitched
together."
The report calls on the
government to restore support for childcare costs for low-income families to
the level before April 2011. This, says Bird, would "help ensure paid
employment makes financial sense for the many low-income women who've found
they are better off not working".
Another recommendation is
ring-fencing funds for Sure Start centres. "This would further protect
women's access to employment and shore up the other vital benefits these
centres offer thousands of families," said Bird.
The society calls on the
coalition to stop local authorities from treating violence against women
services as a soft touch for cuts. "We need to ensure some of the most
vulnerable women in the
Signatories to the report include
Eaves Housing for Women, the End Violence Against Women coalition, Unison,
Child Poverty Action Group, Daycare Trust, White Ribbon Campaign
"We need urgent action to
stop women being ground down by the government's devastating cuts," said
Dave Prentis, Unison's general secretary. "Women's jobs and pensions are
under serious attack. They are being hit hard by unemployment, the rising cost
of living and cuts to benefits and services to young people."
Alison Garnham, chief executive
of Child Poverty Action Group, agreed. "Child poverty and the incomes and
services women are able to access are intrinsically linked. The vast majority
of child benefit is received by women, whether as the main carer in a couple,
or as a single parent.
"It is hugely unfair that
such a large burden of the government's cuts should be falling on the shoulders
of women and children, and it would be profoundly wrong if these unfair cuts to
child benefit became permanent."
A Home Office spokesperson said:
"Fairness is facing up to the reality of the financial situation we are in
and not leaving our children to pick up the bill. This government is protecting
services for the most vulnerable and focusing resources where they are most
needed and most effective.
"We are taking 1.1 million of the lowest-paid workers – most of whom are women – out of income tax altogether, introducing flexible parental leave and extending flexible working, and taking action to reduce the gender pay gap."
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