Written by Talyn Rahman
This march and rally was organised by the London Feminist Network, starting off at Whitehall, finishing at
Euston. Central London was closed off to women protesting in solidarity to end violence against women. The march "Reclaim the Night" is a demonstration to show that women want to feel safe at night without the threat of being raped or attacked.
I met a few women who I felt increasingly disgruntled about, particularly women from English Collective of Prostitutes – who work against everything my group is trying to do, to criminalise men who buy sex and provide sex as trade. They want sex work to be decriminalised so that those working in the industry are treated like any other employee. I understand that being recognised as an employee will give sex workers the right o better health and pay, but I do not like the system of making sex a tool for finance. Tal says no!
From WILPF, only Diane, Deborah and I attended but we made noise by shouting chants and blowing our
whistles throughout the capital. It was cold, but it was fantastic to see so many young women like me in the crowd. It was even more amazing how many more people joined us. The march was massive and hope we made people think twice.
The march ended in a rally at Euston’s Quaker House. One of the guest speaker at the conference was one of
WILPF’s neighbour, a lady from Imkaan called Geeta. I think everyone was close to tears with Finn Mackay’s speech – she is fantastic in bringing out the message. We need the government to stop anyone buying sex, having women’s bodies plastered at the back of magazines, increase funding for emergency rape crisis, more policy protection and close down men’s clubs like Spearmint Rhino club not far from my university.
Having listened to those speeches, I feel determined to write a draft letter and petition to newspapers and magazines protesting and urging them to remove massage and escort services and dirty sex pictures from their print, having the back-up of other feminist institutions across England and the UK. This will be the next thing I bring up at my VAW WILPF meeting, but I will start to look into that before the turn of the New Year.
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