Tag Archives: action

PETITION: Iain Duncan Smith: Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53 a week.

£53 a week?

This petition calls for Iain Duncan Smith, the current Work and Pensions Secretary, to prove his claim of being able to live on £7.57 a day, or £53 a week.

On this morning’s Today Programme David Bennett, a market trader, said that after his housing benefit had been cut, he lives on £53 per week. The next interviewee was Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who was defending the changes. The interviewer then asked him if he could live on this amount. He replied: “If I had to, I would.”

This petition calls on Iain Duncan Smith to live on this budget for at least one year. This would help realise the conservative party`s current mantra that “We are all in this together”.

This would mean a 97% reduction in his current income, which is £1,581.02 a week or £225 a day after tax*.

Please join me.

Link: change.org.

ACTION: Common Cause UK: Congolese women leading change for peace and justice

Common Cause UK is holding a peace vigil in Piccadilly Gardens (Manchester) on this coming Saturday, the 30th March. It is from 12.30pm until 2pm. The vigil is to raise awareness of the mass violence perpetrated against Congolese women.

Piece by ChristinaManch and Sam:

Mama Nzita is a founding member of Common Cause UK. In an interview with Black Feminists Manchester, she shares her thoughts about the ongoing campaign to raise awareness and end violence against Congolese women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She tells us more about the Common Cause Manchester group that formed in December 2012 and their upcoming peace vigil.

Int: Can you tell us about Common Cause UK?

MN: “Common Cause UK are a platform for Congolese women based in the UK, we empower ladies, teach them to know about their rights because ladies are not aware of their rights, they are suffering and facing many problems in this country, so that’s why Common Cause was set up to help ladies in our community.”

Is it specifically for Congolese women?

“At the beginning yes it was for Congolese women, but we have grown now and can help other women, but the focus is for Congolese women

Rest the rest: blackfeministsmanchester.

ACTION: 15-year-old rape survivor has been sentenced to be whipped 100 times in public

Another petition, another horrific case.

It’s hard to believe, but a 15-year-old rape survivor has been sentenced to be whipped 100 times in public! Let’s put an end to this lunacy by hitting the Maldives government where it hurts: the tourism industry.

The girl’s stepfather is accused of raping her for years and murdering the baby she bore. Now the court says she must be flogged for “sex outside marriage” with a man who has not even been named! President Waheed of the Maldives is already feeling global pressure on this, and we can force him to save this girl and change the law to spare other victims this cruel fate. This is how we can end the War on Women – by standing up every time an outrage like this happens.

Tourism is the big earner for the Maldives elite, including government ministers. Let’s build a million-strong petition to President Waheed this week, then threaten the islands’ reputation through hard-hitting ads in travel magazines and online until he steps in to save her and abolish this outrageous law. Sign now and share this with everyone!

Petition here: Avaaz.

Related:

ACTION: Save Fozia and Nawaz from ‘honour’ crime

Please take action.

Fozia and Nawaz are a married couple in grave danger of so-called ‘honour killing’ if returned to Pakistan. They face extreme violence from Fozia’s faimly and community persecution because they have crossed the faith divide. yet UKBA is intent on deporting them.

Love across the faith divide

Fozia is a Syed Shia , Nawaz a Sunni. Well-established and successful in business, the professions, and politics across Pakistan, Syed are regarded as an elite caste. Syed girls are not allowed to marry outside the kinship group, and certainly not to a Sunni.

In 2005 Fozia’s home town of Muzaffarabad was struck by an earthquake, in which 150,000 people, including 28 members of her extended family, were killed. Fozia was dug out of the debris. Nawaz was in one of the volunteer team rescue teams, working alongside the Red Cross and UNICEF. They fell in love across the religious divide. Their love match was furiously opposed by Fozia’s family, one of the most powerful Syed families in Muzaffarabad. If a suitable match of her own age cannot be arranged, a Syed girl is expected to remain unmarried or marry an already married or widowed man. For Fozia’s family , family honour counts for more than anything in the world. In 1992 her cousin, Rehana, was killed by her family, as was the outsider boy she eloped with, with the police watching.

Rest the rest here on ipetitions and please take action.

EVENT: March for Choice in Ireland, Saturday 29th Sept. Dublin

March for the International Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion! Gather at the Spire and march to Merrion Square.

This is a celebration of being pro-choice! A day of being pro-choice and proud, speaking up and speaking out, making our voices heard. Come and celebrate with us!

Confirmed speakers thus far:

Ivana Bacik
Colette Browne
Clare Daly
Mara Clarke (Director of the Abortion Support Network)

Use the wall at www.facebook.com/notalwaysabetteroption to talk about the march and plans!

[Read more: March for Choice in Ireland]

EVENT: Reclaim the Night 2012, 24th November, London

Women’s march against rape and all forms of violence against women. Take back the capital and put your feet on the streets for women on Reclaim the Night 2012. Join with thousands of women to shout a loud NO to rape and male violence against women and demand justice for survivors. Be there – for your friends, your sisters, your daughters, your colleagues, yourself; be there for all the women that can’t. See you at RTN 12. www.reclaimthenight.org

[Read more: Reclaim the Night 2012]

EVENT: Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp (8th – 11th July, 2011)

*Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp * invite you to *Long Weekend Camp

When: Starting at noon on Friday 8th July and ending at noon on Monday 11 July.

Where: “Dingly Dell”, outside AWE Aldermaston, (opposite Young’s Industrial
Estate) near Tadley, Berkshire.

How to get there: see http://www.aldermaston.net/camp/visit

Welcoming, relaxed and inclusive skills sharing and discussion that will nurture and inform us in our daily resistance to violence in all its forms; weapons, cuts to services, violence against women, destruction of the earth’s resources.

An extended weekend of women only non-violent discussion and activity,
including:

-A large banner that we make over the weekend which maps our thoughts and
discussions and that all women can contribute to

Discussions
-Why women only?
-Women’s Non-violence
-Inclusive action – looking at the common hierarchies of arrest
and not arrest and the criminalisation of resistance and how we can find
ways to address these issues.

Practical workshops
– tripod -everyone climbs
– dancing (with extreme ironing)
– blockading

Both Saturday and Sunday will include practical workshops and discussions
Please contact us if your group would like to contribute to the weekend
programme, or to any particular workshop.

Please bring vegetarian/vegan food to share and cook.
If you don’t want to camp, please let us know, and we can provide
information about local accommodation.

This is a women only event.
Further information will be sent out after 12 June or contact
info@aldermaston.net

HELP: Forced marriage campaign – ‘Because I am a Girl’

forced marriagePlan UK’s “Because I am a girl campaign”, by Josephine Tsui // 30 June 2011, 11:06

The charity Plan UK would like your support for the ‘Because I Am A Girl Campaign’ being launched asking the UK public and government to #TaketheVOW by signing an online petition to end early and forced marriage.

You might have already heard about the campaign (which went live yesterday) as The Guardian very recently published a story on it, “10 million child brides each year, charity warns: UK must help to cut level of forced marriages for girls under 18” (25/06/11).

Plan UK wants to inform you of the launch because the campaign will have more impact with the support of influential feminist bloggers like yourself. We hope that the issue of early and forced marriage is of interest to you and your followers and that you will back our campaign.

Lend your voice through a quick and simple action of ‘taking the vow’ today, in support of raising the voices of the millions of girls married young, against their will in the developing world.

One girl is married off every three-and-a-half seconds worldwide. We think forcing girls to marry young is wrong. Please help put a stop to this.

Help us spread the word about our #TaketheVOW action on Twitter – we’re hoping you take your vow before millions of girls in the developing world are forced to take theirs.

** Take your vow at http://www.plan-uk.org/what-we-do/campaigns/because-i-am-a-girl/vow
** Please use our Twibbon, Facebook and blog badges to show your support!
** Use #takethevow to tell friends about the vow and urge them to take theirs!

HELP: Support the strikers this Thursday 30th June

Please do support those taking industrial action in Huddersfield on Thursday:
7.30am – picket line at Huddersfield Job Centre
10am – Public Meeting at St Patrick’s Irish Centre in Hudds
12pm – Rally at Market Cross, Huddersfield

Want to go further afield? Check the UK Uncut website for details of what’s happening around Britain

http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/blog/join-the-big-society-breakfast-and-support-the…

EVENT: Huddersfield Feminist Collective at Manchester Slutwalk

Slutwalk (1)Here’s a couple of shots from when some of us took part in the Manchester Slutwalk on Friday 10 June.

Another Slutwalk is currently being planned for Leeds – look out for them on Twitter if you want to get involved.

[Thanks to Pictures In The Cloud for letting us reuse the pics here!]

Slutwalk (2)