Report to the People
13th March 2006
International
Women’s Day
If you were relegated to the
portable television in the kitchen last week while your alleged better half took
his pick of the Champions League and Scottish Cup games on Sky, you might have
reflected that there were perhaps more fitting ways to mark International
Women’s Day.
If it’s any consolation,
though, MSPs wanting to debate the issues on which this annual event encourages
us to focus were also obliged to withdraw to less comfortable surroundings.
To let the experts drafted in to inspect Holyrood’s roof get on with
sucking their teeth and asking “Who put this in for you, then?”, we decamped
to a temporary debating chamber at the top of the Royal Mile.
Not that the makeshift
setting detracted from the debate. Speaker
after speaker made the point that, despite all that has been achieved, women
today are still fighting inequalities such as lower pay and fewer employment
opportunities.
And, shamefully, far too many
women continue to live in fear of physical or emotional abuse in the place where
they should feel most safe - the home.
It was appropriate, then,
that the Communities Minister chose International Women’s Day to announce that
the Inverclyde Domestic Abuse Project is to receive almost £100,000 to tackle
violence against women in our community.
This cash will let them fund
prevention and protection services over the next two years and will help free
more local women from the constant terror of cowardly, criminal bullying at the
hands of their inadequate partners.
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