Million Women Rise

The day arrived and the half dozen of us set off from Coventry at 8 to pick up the Birmingham women to arrive at Hyde park about 11.30am. The energy was building up in the coach as we traveled down to London. We (Frieda, Justina and myself)  were all excited and it was such a buzz to march with so many women going down Oxford Street, down Regent Street to Trafalgar Square.

There were many stewards at hand advising us where to go. We were handed out chant sheets and whistles were for sale. I met up with my friends – Pauline, Debbie and Kirsten. We handed them umbrellas on which we had painted our slogans: Disabled Women Rise. The sun was shining but hey, they were still good to have and it helped me keep track of the others in a moving mass of people. We were also joined by Felix Gonzales who had kindly agreed to come and video some of the event for us and he wanted to do some interviews and capture the mood of the day for  International Women’s Day. We did tell him to film from the sidelines (as only women were allowed on the rally itself)

Pauline and Justina under the umbrellas

There were wave upon wave of banners and placards and women were chanting and singing. And many women were dressed up for the occasion.

Million Women Rise rally

I was invited to be one of the speakers and I asked my friend, Michelle Daley to do a double act with me. We had a lift put in for us to the stage and I asked her to go on ahead to make sure it was in working order. We arrived and before i had time to panic we were on for our short speech.

Here are the videos that Felix had put online of the day

There are many more videos on Felix’s site – http://www.youandifilms.com/

But finally (because we were asked) here is the speech that Michelle and I did -

Breaking the silence of Disabled Women

(Eleanor)

Fiona Pilkington caught the headlines when she killed herself and her disabled daughter by setting fire to their car – she had been unable to get help against constant abuse and intimidation from local youths but there are many, many disabled women who are abused, violated and within their own homes. We want you to hear some of those voices from a recent report on Disabled women and domestic violence.

“Oh yes, he would drag me along the floor because I couldn’t walk or get away that was how it would start, the way it always went. He’d insult me with all those names, ‘you spassy’ and so on, ‘who’d want to marry you?’

And he smashed me against the wall, shouting insults, you cripple, all that sort of thing.”

“Because I can’t feed myself and he would go out in the evenings deliberately and I wouldn’t have eaten anything for a twenty-four hour period or more. So that wouldn’t have happened to anybody that could feed themselves.”

In the evenings I’d be exhausted. And being deaf is hard work you know, you have to concentrate so much harder and it’s tiring. And he’d be furious and slap me and kick me awake. And he used to like: ‘Don’t you fall asleep on me, I want a wife, a real wife not an old woman’. And you know it was sex all the time, twice a day and he would shout at me and then hold me down and I hated it, I hated it.”

You know refuge provision is scarce, and accessible refuge provision is almost non existent and many women believed they could not be accommodated according to their needs.

Disabled women are also more vulnerable to sexual assaults in places such as care homes and by their carers. James Watts, sexually assaulted four disabled women at the care home where he worked as a mini bus driver. He was found guilty after one of his victims testified by blinking yes or no to questions from the police.

(Michelle)

Disabled women continue (even as we speak) to experience physical, mental and sexual abuse. The sad reality is, our voices continue to go unheard by those key services that are set up to assist and support women in vulnerable positions.

Sisters, in order for you to really appreciate the seriousness of our situations experienced by disabled women you must recognise and understand the barriers we experience which can worsen the problems.

For this reason it can be difficult for us to report our abuser or even challenge them especially if we are dependent on them for support. What worries us is that many disabled women are forced to continue to experience brutality and suffering from their abuser. This is a sad and worrying reality!

Also, we must not forget about the experiences of disabled women with multiple identities. For many of us we continue to experience multiple discrimination from within the disability movement, other women, community and society.

Being here today for both of us (Eleanor and myself) is about raising the voices of our disabled sisters. It is also about ensuring our recognition within this struggle for human rights. We close by saying that we all have a responsibility to ensure disabled women are recognised and respected as equals within this struggle for all of our voices to be heard – “we are women too!”.

Finally everybody, HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY