Hammana Siddiqui with other members of Southall Black Sisters International Women's Day 2006 saw the launching of the "Why Women" campaign by the Women's Resource Centre to defend services for women as an essential part of social provision
"At the beginning we started an obituary list for groups that had closed and just watched with horror as it grew and grew," says policy co-ordinator Tania Pouwhare. "It's common for voluntary sector groups to face funding problems, but we saw this was becoming an overwhelming issue."
Pouwhare is concerned that there is a growing attitude
funders that the battle for women's equality has been won and discrimination overcome. In the context "Socialism in the 2lst of a continual battle for apparently scarce resources, this means services to women are particularly under threat.
Of course such assumptions are an outrage. Women continue to face discrimination in every aspects of our lives; in the family, in the education system, at work, in terms of our right to control our bodies, in the way images of us as used to sell every commodity in the universe, and in many, many other ways.
And the improvements that have been made over the last thirty years and more have been achieved through women coming together and campaigning. Sometimes that has happened through campaigns run entirely on a voluntary basis, sometimes the support of organisations such as trade unions has been essential and sometimes charities which have received public funds have played an essential role.
For example, 1992 was a landmark moment in the battle against domestic violence when Kiranjit Ahluwalia had her conviction quashed and was freed after a retrial. Ahluwalia had been sentenced to life imprisonment or killing her violent husband.
But without the support of Southall Black Sisters who took up the case and mounted a lengthy campaign of pickets outside the court combined with publicity initiatives highlighting the reality of the lives of women subjected to domestic violence, it is very unlikely that victory would have been achieved.
"What we did was force the justice system to widen the definition of provocation to obituary list for groups that had closed and just watched with horror as it grew and grew" equality, will only be sustained if campaigning is continued.
Siddiqui says that today they are facing "a mounting crisis" and that, without urgent sustainable investment by statutory funders, hundreds of grassroots women's organisations will have to close.
"The government has never adequately invested in the women's sector," Siddiqui. "Now that we're living in an era of commissioning and contracts, specialist groups like women's charities are getting pushed out in favour of generic services that can tick as many boxes as possible.
With the Budget being announced in April the campaign is currently lobbying Gordon Brown to provide funding to save the women's voluntary and community sector (WVCS).
This is particularly vital this year as the government is putting forward a funding strategy for the sector for the next 10 years.
The campaign is urging people to write to Gordon Brown to explain:
• why the women's voluntary and community sector is so important to you/your service-users
• that we are facing a worsening funding crisis and action needs to be taken NOW, with funding provision in the Budget to help save women's organisations from more closures and cutbacks.
• that we need sustainable, long-term funding, not just "quick-fixes".
• how important it is to change the 'no recourse to public funds' rule which stops women with insecure immigration status, such as asylum Veronica Fagan Forty years ago, the 1967 Abortion Act was passed by the British parliament. In its day it was one of the most progressive laws governing women's fertility - and most of the energy of prochoice activists in the last four decades has been spent preventing reactionary amendments that sought to weaken the bills provision.
Through the mass mobilisation of women and increasingly of the trade union movement, the National Abortion campaign succeeded time and again in beating back attacks on our right to control our own bodies.
As the pro-choice movement began to ebb in the 1980s, some attempts to restrict timelimits in particular had limited success.
But in any event, the 67 Act never gave women the full right to choose. As Abortion Rights said, in launching a new campaign on Women's Day to extend women's rights.
A new opinion poll conducted by GFK/NOP and commissioned by Abortion Rights and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust shows 77 per cent of British citizens support a woman's right to choose an abortion in the first three months of pregnancy -illustrating how strong the prochoice majority remains in the UK.
British law currently restricts the circumstances in which a woman can have an abortion and the decision must be approved by two doctors.
A further 72 percent said it was not acceptable for a woman who had been referred for an abortion to have to wait beyond three weeks for the procedure.
The Government recommends that women should have to wait no longer than three weeks, but a study conducted for the Pro-choice and Sexual Health All Party Parliamentary Group showed that 27 percent of Primary Care Trusts delayed women beyond 21 days.
The campaign, which is backed by many MPs, peers, doctors, nurses, sexual health organisations, trade unions, artists and students, is calling for: • Abortion to be available at the request of the woman • An end to unacceptable delays in service provision • An end to minority antichoice attacks on current abortion rights
Anne Quesney, Director of Abortion Rights said:
"This poll shows it is time for the Government to take a lead and bring the abortion law in
RIT line with overwhelming public opinion.
"The results reveal that the anti-choice lobby, which has been dominating the abortion debate over the last three years in the hope of silencing women and the pro-choice majority, only represents 3 percent of the population.
*The Government and parliamentarians can be reassured that modernising the abortion law and securing better access to services for women would very welcome.
"It is almost 40 years since abortion was legalised in Britain - now is the time to trust women to make this very personal decision."