This is the joint website of  Women Against Rape and Black Women's Rape Action Project. Both organisations are based on self-help and provide support, legal information and advocacy. We campaign for justice and protection for all women and girls, including asylum seekers, who have suffered sexual, domestic and/or racist violence.

WAR was founded in 1976. It has won changes in the law, such as making rape in marriage a crime, set legal precedents and achieved compensation for many women. BWRAP was founded in 1991. It focuses on getting justice for women of colour, bringing out the particular discrimination they face. It has prevented the deportation of many rape survivors. Both organisations are multiracial.

 

 

 

Home » Campaigning against the Welfare Reform Bill

Campaigning against the Welfare Reform Bill

Campaigning against the Welfare Reform Bill

Public meeting in UK Parliament

The Welfare Reform Bill, currently going through Parliament, seeks to abolish Income Support and instead make almost everyone seek jobs as a condition of receiving benefits. The government says 30% of women have suffered domestic violence. Income Support is a crucial entitlement ensuring the basic human right to survive -- for mothers who are victims of domestic violence, their children, and other vulnerable people, young and old. This Bill would force traumatised women escaping domestic violence to look for a job or face sanctions, denying them time to recover. As a result of lobbying, the government agreed a three-month respite from job-seeking after domestic violence, but this is not enough. A single mother active in WAR who fled domestic violence describes how it took many months to get herself together after leaving her violent partner.

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Welfare Reform Bill denies full protection to women and children fleeing violence, and increases danger from ex-partners.

Sign below to stop these measures

The government and its Minister for Women Harriet Harman have made a great show of their commitment to support women against domestic violence. But measures in the Welfare Reform Bill which give traumatised victims of domestic violence only brief respite from the job-seeking requirement, and grant ex-partners more rights over children to prolong their hurtful and dangerous involvement, prove otherwise.

We urge you to help stop these uncaring measures before they become law. Please add your name to the statement at the end, and circulate to others concerned with women and children’s safety.

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Welfare Reform Bill: From a mother who fled domestic violence

You can’t put a time limit as if everyone was the same.

Excerpts: "If the government forces women escaping domestic violence to work after one month, they obviously have no idea what they’re doing...You can’t really put a time limit as if everyone was the same…It is very much down to how each individual heals and if they heal at all…

Also you may be able to exit this relationship physically but that doesn’t mean that the abuse stops there. You are in a mental prison after having been controlled for so long…

Being forced into a work situation prematurely has a very high risk of backfiring. I am certain that the crime rate would increase and so would the suicide rate…To me it seems that victims of violence keep getting victimised…"
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Model letter on the Welfare Reform Bill

Dear

I am very worried about the Welfare Reform Bill. In particular, I am concerned that it would (ADD ANY OF THE FOLLOWING POINTS AND YOUR OWN VIEWS OR EXPERIENCES)

* Force traumatised women escaping domestic violence to look for a job or face sanctions.

* Abolish Income Support. The Welfare Reform Bill treats mothers as “workless”, ignoring their vital caring work. Income Support is a crucial entitlement ensuring the basic human right to survive -- for mothers, other carers who cannot get Carers’ Allowance, those they care for, victims of domestic violence and other vulnerable people, young and old.

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