The introduction of the Destitution Domestic Violence concession in 2012 giving some migrant victims access to public funds was widely welcomed. However, while many have long waits for benefits, others still do not have a safety net to escape violence.
Racist and patriarchal ideas underpin the new ‘family planning’ initiatives promoted by DfID, USAID and the Gates Foundation which deny women in the global South real control over their bodies. The appropriation of the notion of ‘women’s right to choose’ for neoliberal population control must be c
Action is stirring in response to the country-wide housing crisis. Severe shortage and cuts to housing benefits leave the UK struggling to put roofs over heads. Some local authorities and tenant groups are trying to rebel; they need concerted support.
From April 2013 major changes to benefit provision in Britain will likely change both the social and spatial make-up of our cities. The squeezing out of poorer residents from London and elsewhere, raises an important question: exactly who has the ‘right’ to the city in contemporary Britain?
Although the fundamental injustice of poverty cannot be remedied by lawyers alone, legal aid is crucial to a fair and effective justice system. No government that makes it harder for the poor to navigate through the justice system can claim poverty reduction as a priority, says Kate Donald
As huge swathes of Britain are beggared and left bewildered by the upheavals and moralising that we have already endured, and placated by scapegoating of the poor and other groups like immigrants, Labour must dig deep to set things straight.
Britain’s Coalition Government has announced further cuts to benefits and social services. But while it demonises those out of work, where is its strategy for jobs?
400,000 evictions, a hunger strike by Carmen Armaña, and the suicide of Amaia Egaña as the eviction police came up the stairs to put her family out on the street, have brought mass anger and fury at unjust political and financial decisions in Spain, says Liz Cooper
Jobs are disappearing in the UK, wages are dropping, and there is a shocking absence of political debate about the changing nature of work and the disappearance of full-time secure employment.
The utter disregard for women that austerity represents has galvanised and united women at a time where we are attacked from so many angles. But we are not only visible in response to austerity. There are explicitly feminist acts and discussions everywhere. There is no denying that we are making a
It was predictable and in fact predicted. The British Government’s austerity programme has turned back the clock on women’s rights and hard-won economic gains.
A London-based theatre company founded by two women prisoners will take a play about trafficked girls to the UK’s Latitude Festival this weekend. Lucy Perman talked to openDemocracy 50.50 about the play and why prison is no solution for the women who find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
