Shattering the silence: a performance and book fight back against the UK's non-compliance with CEDAW

Women v The State (UK) seeks case studies and evidence to support an inquiry into state noncompliance with the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The book will focus on abuse against women perpetrated by the state or its agencies in its devolution of responsibility to protect women and safeguard their rights, particularly in the private sector due to financial retrenchment disguised as austerity. This book gives a voice to those who have been damaged by cuts and inequality across all classes and social strata, all areas which affect women.

Anna is a Nigerian woman who was trafficked into the UK as a sex slave and fled her captors to seek asylum in 2010. She and her young son have been forced to move five times in six months as a result of the failure of a G4S subcontractor to pay their rent, electricity and utility bills. Privatisation is just one way the state removes risk and its responsibility for the most vulnerable, sometimes using financial retrenchment disguised as austerity, as the excuse to monetise social services and capitalise on trauma.

Anna told The Guardian recently, "A lot of people are going through the same thing but they are scared to speak up. It's not right to treat people this way but no one listens to you if you are an asylum seeker."

Marion, running a billion dollar hedge fund is told that getting pregnant was not included in her employment contract and fired, with no recourse, for being no unfit to do her job.

A woman who is a former escort publishes a high profile book about partying and taking cocaine with some of our most powerful and prominent politicians. Her home is raided at dawn by 30 policemen, and the published book is heavily censored, removing embarrassing photographs of a senior minister taking cocaine.

A new project, Women v The State (UK), is gathering the stories of women like Anna, Marion and others – failed by the very systems that exist to protect them. Theirs are the stories behind the headlines, the stories of women let down by the state, which has so far failed to adopt CEDAW’s mandate to mainstream gender equality. Economists have found that women, particularly single parents and pensioners, suffered more than men from cuts to benefits and public services, particularly because women’s services are often the first to go.

Women v The State (UK) is the first project of Kazuri Minds, a new social enterprise think tank set up to examine and influence government and corporate policy and how it impacts women. The book covers state inadequacies in fulfilling CEDAW mandates across sectors such as health, employment, education, representation, social and economic benefits, sex role stereotyping, trafficking, and marriage and family law. It will shatter the silence around state abuse towards women across all social strata, particularly those who are marginalised for other societal reasons, such as race, religion, age, social class, or colour.

Creative Director, Farah Damji, believes it is vital to reveal the stories of women who have been traumatised as a direct result of the actions of the state and its entrenched institutionalised inequality.

"The increasing monetisation of welfare services is, in many cases, not only failing to protect traumatised and vulnerable women from further harm, but also frequently inflicting further trauma upon victims, survivors and their loved ones." says Farah.

Women v The State (UK) asks women and frontline organisations across the UK to come forward with their experiences of such failures, including in the criminal justice system, exile, secure hospitals, mental health services, the asylum system, children’s homes, and sexual assault referral centres (SARCs). A recent report showed that there are still severe gaps in the provision of services to help women escape and recover from violence and abuse. This is to be expected, since 2010, 31% of funding to the domestic violence and sexual abuse services sector was cut.

Editor Nanki Chawla said, “We want to collect as many stories as we can for Women v the State (UK), which is a powerful way of highlighting the failures of the state in mainstreaming gender equality. We will make sure all stories are presented anonymously to protect the identities of the women involved and to make sure they do not experience further distress.”

The Women v The State (UK) book will include a foreword by the former Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, Michael Turner QC, and will be launched at the House of Commons in March 2014. The launch will follow a dramatisation of several stories from the book at Women of the World 2014, written and produced by renowned writer, playwright and activist Farrukh Dhondy who wrote the groundbreaking film Bandit Queen, the story of the notorious Indian woman and gangster, Phoolan Devi. Penny Cherns, senior tutor at LAMBDA will direct a gripping dramatisation of the stories, which give a voice to these women's inconvenient truths in the patriarchal hierarchies which suppress a woman's dignity, her choices and her humanity.

Sarah Cheverton, co editor emphasises "Given the repeated failings of the state in mainstreaming gender equality, it is important to raise awareness of the deep-rooted patterns of gendered abuse in the UK. We need to look at safer options which take into account the health and wellbeing of our community and our economy and get away from this spiralling race to the bottom.

‘Women v the State (UK)’ video: Coming soon!

We’re very excited to progressing with our project, the centrepiece of which is our book raising awareness of the damaging effects the privatisation of welfare has on women. We will shortly be launching our crowd-funding campaign, explaining our project against the monetisation of welfare services, and trying to raise a few pennies to get it off the ground.

After two successful report launches at the House of Commons which have affected real change in government policy and years of grassroots work with vulnerable and marginalised women, we are now using this project to connect policymakers with those on the ground. We are publishing a book aiming to shatter the silence around the real impact of outsourced public service contracts, and its damaging effect on women. 

From our crowdfunding video to come!

We’ve found that women have been disproportionately affected by the recession and austerity measures, with twice as many women as men losing their jobs in the public sector. Female unemployment is at its highest in over 25 years. It has become clear that awarding these contracts to the lowest bidder fails to protect many traumatised women, and instead inflicts further trauma upon them.

Our campaign is working against monetising necessary welfare services, upon which thousands of vulnerable people around the UK rely. Shazia Mirza will dramatise these stories at Women of the World (WOW) 2014, demonstrating the appalling effects of privatisation on women in the UK. We've just put together our brand new Facebook and twitter pages, so like/follow and share!

We are very much looking forward to working with our collaborators and getting this project up and running. Our call for submissions is still active, so please write in if you know of any women or organisations who would like to contribute, and please share to raise awareness of this important issue.

Please get in touch with us if you any questions, concerns, advice, or just want to have a chat about these issues!

Shattering the Silence: Privatisation's adverse effects on women

This post was originally published here on The F Word on 09 August 2013, by one of our team, Nanki Chawla.


Recent media reports have highlighted how big outsourcing companies like G4S and Serco are failing to deliver on public sector contracts, and even, making services worse. This is bad news for all citizens of the UK, but particularly for marginalised groups who suffer systemic injustices. Despite being half of the country's population, women continue to be one of these groups, and recent findings have proved that women are particularly disadvantaged by privatisation.

Women have been disproportionately affected by the economic downturn and by austerity measures, with twice as many women as men losing their jobs in the public sector, and the female unemployment rate at its highest for over 25 years. Women are also doubly impacted as mothers and carers providers by austerity measures, with vulnerable women (PDF) - many traumatised by violence and abuse - the hardest hit. A recent damning report by the think tank the Institute for Government has drawn attention to the many problems with the government's current programme of privatisation. Outsourcing contracts to organisations that lack the experience, expertise and even willingness to provide effective services is suggestive of the questionable direction the welfare system is being taken by successive governments. The unremitting focus on cutting costs shows a shocking disregard for the many human beings who are suffering and for whom this welfare is (in many cases, literally) a matter of life and death.

One such example of this is Anna, a Nigerian woman, who was trafficked into the UK as a sex slave and fled her captors to seek asylum in 2010. She and her young son have been forced to move five times in six months as a result of the failure of a private subcontractor to pay their rent, electricity and utility bills.

Stories such as hers are sadly not unusual. I recently worked with Kazuri, a social enterprise with a focus on housing as a human right, on a report entitled "Carers or Captors?" (PDF) highlighting the UK asylum system's abysmal failure to protect women. Many of these women are seeking asylum because of the extreme ordeal they have already suffered, and are thus particularly vulnerable to re-traumatisation. G4S, one of the largest security companies in the world, won £324m out of a seven year £620m contract to house asylum seekers, and has made more than £1.5bn over five years from government contracts in the UK alone. The prospect of large profits awaiting private sector organisations suggest that they will continue to express interest in public sector contracts, but continuous outsourcing belies any real governmental interest in welfare. The report indicates their apathetic attitude towards providing a standard of housing fit for human habitation; this coupled with their policy of intimidation and harassment suggests their motives are unlikely to be altruistic.

When female asylum seekers have been evicted because firms contracted by G4S have failed to pay rent, when a G4S guard involved in the death of a 15 year old is promoted and is behind an application to open a privately run children's home, and when the government allows known intimidators of vulnerable women to run rape crisis centres, it is time something is done. Evidence given by Stephen Small, the Managing Director of the contract for asylum seeker housing, to the Home Affairs Select Committee looking into the Compass housing contract confirms G4S and Serco are running housing for vulnerable people as loss leaders, in order to get a foot in the door to provide large social housing contracts to vulnerable communities. It should be obvious and yet must continue to be said: security and outsourcing companies have no place in a sector whose responsibility it is to provide welfare to the most marginalised and vulnerable people in our society.

Following Kazuri's report, Margaret Hodge, MP, chair of the UK government's public account committee, has called a public inquiry into the UK Border Agency's COMPASS contract and into private sector delivery of public services. Whilst this is an important step, public pressure must continue against privatisation of public services to stop this entrenched institutional bias against women and other marginalised groups. This bias silences thousands of women, often doubly marginalised for their colour, race, ethnicity or social background.

For this reason, in collaboration with Kazuri, I will be co-editing Women vs The State (UK), a compilation of women's true accounts of injustices suffered due to the privatisation of public services and unfair austerity measures. We intend to shatter the silence around the outsourcing of government contracts, and their sickening effects on the most vulnerable members of UK society. This book will also form part of the evidence base for a broader campaign supporting a formal public inquiry into the procurement, commissioning and monitoring of public services by large private sector companies, to be launched in the House of Lords in November.

These companies continue to abjectly fail to provide services, violate the human rights of the most vulnerable and be paid for the privilege with impunity. Private companies with such dismal human rights records must no longer be awarded public sector contracts, unless uncompromising measures for accountability and monitoring are put into place.

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Image attribution and description: The image at the head of this post is called Shattered bokeh. It is a monochrome photo of a piece of broken security glass, through which can be seen the outside world. It was modified by Helen from an original photo by c@rljones under the Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Holding the Private Sector to Account or Holding Critics at Bay?

This post was originally published here on The Huffington Post on 30 July 2013, by one of our team, Sarah Cheverton.

Margaret Hodge, MP, chair of the UK government's public accounts committee, has confirmed reviews into the UK Border Agency's COMPASS contract and into private sector delivery of public services.

The news follows lobbying from housing social enterprise Kazuri over allegations of G4S's failures in managing the COMPASS contract for asylum seeker housing after the alleged eviction of three female asylum seekers.

Responding to Kazuri's allegations in a letter, Margaret Hodge said: "As you will know, the former UK Border Agency (now part of the Home Office) recently tendered for new asylum housing contracts, which began operating in May 2012, each covering a region of the UK.

"You raised a concern that asylum seekers have been evicted from properties because of rent arrears that had arisen because G4S's subcontractors were not paying landlords.

"I have forwarded your letter to the National Audit Office (NAO), as the issues you raise regarding asylum accommodation are of interest in the context of the NAO's work in this area.

"The NAO plans to look at COMPASS and the arrangements for asylum accommodation.

"This work will feed into a wider review which the NAO is undertaking looking at the delivery of public services by private sector contractors (including G4S) to support a Public Accounts Committee hearing with the contractors in the Autumn.

"I understand that the Home Office is aware of general concerns around the contracts in operation, although it was not aware of the specific details around G4S and rent arrears and will look into this further."

In a recent interview with the Guardian, Hodge countered the common criticism that select committees 'lack teeth', saying:

"The Institute for Public Policy Research once did a study on select committees and one anonymous civil servant told them that they don't change the price of fish. I've always remembered that. I do want to change the price of fish."

Questions are being been asked after reports of the failure of several outsourcing giants - including G4S, A4E, Atos, Serco and Capita - to deliver lucrative public service contracts.

With public sector contracts up for tender this year estimated to be worth £4.2bn, there's a lot for the private sector to play for.

Yet, currently two outsourcing companies - G4S and Serco - have been found by the Justice Secretary to have overcharged the government by tens of millions of pounds, having been caught out charging for tagging people still in prison, dead or not in the UK.

This tagging scandal highlights an almost complete disregard for the government's challenges to private sector failures, failures committed at the expense of - and in many cases, to the detriment of - UK taxpayers.

Speaking to the Financial Times recently, the chief executive of Capita, Paul Pindar, referred to the fraud investigation into Serco's and G4S's electronic tagging as a 'distraction', pointing to the eagerness of the 'guys in central government' (including Chief Procurement Officer, Bill Crothers and Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude) for the private sector to deliver public service contracts.

The Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling is now attempting to legally exclude G4S from bidding for further tagging contracts and has referred the fraud allegations to the Serious Fraud Office.

He too, will have his work cut out for him, as G4S has been consulting international legal firm Linklaters for the last few months. Linklaters is the firm recently criticised by Sun journalists for allegations of its role in their arrests, and which 'helped' G4S deal with its failure over the Olympic contract last year.

In the meantime, both the public and the voluntary sector look on aghast as appalling news of rapes, deaths and investigations connected with G4S contracts hit national and international headlines nigh on daily.
Worse still is the continuing puzzle of why such failures too often go unpunished.

We watch with interest, along with Margaret Hodge MP, to see if a select committee can change the 'price of fish' and finally hold the private sector to account.

Why We Need Women v The State (UK)

This post was originally published on The Huffington Post here on 25th July 2013 by one of our team, Sarah Cheverton.

As news spreads of how huge outsourcing companies like G4S are failing to deliver on public service contracts, a new project aims to tell the human story behind the headlines.

In the last few weeks, accounts of the outsourcing giant G4S' flailing track record to deliver on public service contracts have been exploding across our newspapers, blogs and screens.

Female asylum seekers evicted because firms contracted by G4S fail to pay rent. A G4S guard involved in the fatal restraining of a 15 year old gets promoted and 'secretly' applies to open a G4S private children's home. Rape Crisis concerned about contracts awarded to G4S to work with rape victims in Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs).

Unfortunately, these are but some of the many stories highlighting the multiple failures of G4S and other corporate giants to deliver on their promises to UK taxpayers.

So when I was asked recently by UK social enterprise Kazuri to co-edit a new book seeking to tell the stories of women failed by privately-run public services, I didn't hesitate to get involved.

Woman vs The State (UK) highlights the stories behind the headlines, stories of women failed by the very systems that promised to protect them. Stories of women like Anna B, a Nigerian woman trafficked into the UK as a sex slave who fled her captors to seek asylum in 2010.

Anna and her young son were forced to move six times in six months as a result of the failure of a G4S subcontractor to pay their rent, electricity and utility bills.

She told the Guardian recently, "A lot of people are going through the same thing but they are scared to speak up. It's not right to treat people this way but no one listens to you if you are an asylum seeker."
Director of the project and founder of housing social enterprise Kazuri, Farah Damji, believes it is vital to reveal the stories of women who have been re-traumatised as a direct result of the actions of huge corporations like G4S and others.

"The health and wellbeing of women like Anna are being sold for private profit," says Farah.
"The increasing procurement of public services from the private sector is, in many cases, not only failing to protect traumatised and vulnerable women from further farm, but also frequently inflicting further trauma upon victims, survivors and their loved ones."

Farah is now asking women's organisations across the UK to come forward with their experiences of women who have experienced such failures, including in the criminal justice system, exile, secure hospitals, domestic violence shelters and sexual assault referral centres (SARCs).

These stories will be collected into a book, with individual stories presented anonymously in order to protect the identities and to prevent further distress to those involved.

The Woman vs The State book will include a foreword from Head of the Criminal Bar Association Michael Turner QC, and will be published by independent publisher Off_Press.

It will form part of the evidence base for a broader campaign calling for a formal public inquiry into the procurement, commissioning and monitoring of public services by large private sector companies, to be launched in the House of Lords in November.

"G4S was awarded a contract to provide social housing to asylum seekers, though it had no previous experience of doing so," said Farah.

"Given the repeated failings of G4S in delivering on its contracts - even those related to their core business of security, like the Olympics - I simply do not believe that that this is a company in whose 'care' vulnerable people are safe."

Call for submissions Women vs The State (UK)

We are currently seeking submissions of personal testimonies for the Woman vs State (UK) project.

WHAT IS IT?

Women vs The State (UK) is a compilation of women’s accounts which seeks to highlight the systemic injustices against women arising out of the steady privatisation of public services, with a foreword by Michael Turner QC. 

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

The increasing deployment of the private sector to fulfill public services – in the criminal justice system, housing for asylum seekers, and the violence against women sector - not only fails to protect traumatised women from further harm, but often inflicts further trauma upon female victims and survivors and their loved ones. A recent damning report by the think tank the Institute for Government has drawn attention to the many problems with the government’s current programme of privatisation. Outsourcing contracts to organizations that lack the experience, expertise or even willingness to provide effective services is suggestive of the questionable direction the welfare system is being taken by successive governments. The unremitting focus on cutting costs shows a shocking disregard for the many human beings who are suffering and for whom this welfare is (in many cases, literally) a matter of life and death.

A recent report by Kazuri entitled “Carers or Captors?” highlights the UK asylum system’s abysmal failure to protect women. Many of these women are seeking asylum because of the extreme trauma they have already suffered: they are thus particularly vulnerable to re-traumatisation. G4S, one of the largest security companies in the world, won £324m out of a seven year £620m contract to house asylum seekers, and has made more than £1.5bn over five years from government contracts in the UK alone. The prospect of huge profits awaiting private sector organisations suggest that they will continue to express interest in public sector contracts, but continuous outsourcing belies any real governmental interest in welfare. The report indicates their apathetic attitude towards providing a standard of housing fit for human habitation; this coupled with their policy of intimidation and harassment suggests their motives are unlikely to be altruistic. When the government allows known intimidators of vulnerable women to run rape crisis centers, we believe something must be done. Evidence given by the Stephan Small to the Home Affairs Select Committee looking into the Compass housing contract confirms G4S and Serco are running housing for vulnerable people as loss leaders, with a view to get a foot in the door to provide large social housing contracts to vulnerable communities. We don’t believe security or outsource companies have a place in this sector.

On top of this, the entrenched institutional bias against women strips them of both their agency and their ability to stand against the structures of power in this country. It silences thousands of women, often doubly marginalized for their colour, race, ethnicity or social background.

WE NEED YOU.

We will shatter the silence around the outsourcing of government contracts, and their sickening effects on the most vulnerable members of UK society.

We are seeking personal stories of women who have experienced public services delivered by private companies, including in the criminal justice system, exile, secure hospitals, domestic violence shelters and SARCs. We believe the stories of those whose health and wellbeing has been sold for private profit deserve to be told.

Our current title, reminiscent of a court case, suggests the oppositional relationship between vulnerable women and the powers that be. We hope that projects like ours will be able to draw attention to this unfortunate antagonism, and remind the government that the welfare of its citizens should be their first priority. After all, the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

We are looking for first person true accounts which showcases experiences with private sector organizations contracted to fulfill public services – these can be asylum seekers, refugees, domestic violence survivors, human trafficking survivors, offenders or ex-offenders, or indeed, any woman who has suffered injustice at the hands of privatisation. The submissions can be in any form: prose, poetry, lyric, interview transcripts, case studies etc. These can be written and sent in via email or post, or we are happy to conduct interviews to collect stories. All stories will be told anonymously to protect identities and prevent further distress to those involved.

Submissions should be around 1,000 – 2,000 words, but we are flexible. We are happy to entertain any other thoughts, ideas or possible submissions.

If you are interested in providing a case study for Woman vs State (UK), please contact the editors: Sarah Cheverton Sarah@kazuri.org.uk or Nanki Chawla Nanki@kazuri.org.uk

LAUNCH

Woman vs State (UK) will be launched at a high profile event at the House of Lords in November 2013, and will provide a series of case studies to support Kazuri Homes’ campaign calling for a public inquiry into the procurement, commissioning and monitoring of public services by large private sector companies.

Editors – Sarah Cheverton and Nanki Chawla

Creative Director – Farah Damji, Kazuri

Language / English

Pages / 120

Margaret Hodge confirms review of private sector delivery of public services

Along with other campaigners and commentators, Kazuri has spent much time of late calling on Government to hold G4S to account for the disastrous experiences of many women under the COMPASS contract for housing asylum seekers.

We have also become increasingly concerned about the growing involvement of large private sector companies in the delivery of public services to vulnerable people, including the recent awarding to G4S of a contract to run Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs).

We are delighted to have received a letter from Margaret Hodge, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts confirming an examination of the delivery of the COMPASS contract and a broader review of the delivery of public services by private sector contractors.

The letter reads as follows:

As you will know, the former UK Border Agency (now part of the Home Office) recently tendered for new asylum housing contracts, which began operating in May 2012, each covering a region of the UK. You raised a concern that asylum seekers have been evicted from properties because of rent arrears that had arisen because G4S's subcontractors were not paying landlords.

I have forwarded your letter to the National Audit Office (NAO), as the issues you raise regarding asylum accommodation are of interest in the context of the NAO's work in this area. The NAO plans to look at COMPASS and the arrangements for asylum accommodation. This work will feed into a wider review which the NAO is undertaking looking at the delivery of public services by private sector contractors (including G4S) to support a Public Accounts Committee hearing with the contractors in the Autumn.

 I understand that the Home Office is aware of general concerns around the contracts in operation, although it was not aware of the specific details around G4S and rent arrears and will look into this further.

We strongly welcome this news and look forward to supporting the Government in its examination of the delivery of public services by private contractors.

Kazuri has recently opened a Call for Submissions to support our own campaign for a public inquiry to look into the letting of large public service contracts by government departments, the waste of public funds as these contracts are not managed efficiently, and the impossible situation of women who are forced to use these services to seek redress or improvement.