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MNHQ

Webchat with Victoria Atkins MP, Home Office Minister for Safeguarding and Extremism, on Thursday 11th February at 11am.

6 replies

JuliaMumsnet · 09/02/2021 12:00

Hello.

We’re pleased to announce a webchat with Victoria Atkins, Home Office Minister for Safeguarding and Extremism, on Thursday 11 February at 11am.

Victoria Atkins is the Conservative MP for Louth and Horncastle and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home Office. She was previously Minister for Women from 2018 to 2020.

As Minister for Safeguarding, her responsibilities include domestic abuse, violence against women and girls (including FGM and forced marriage), child sexual abuse, stalking, prostitution, sexual violence including the rape review, and early youth intervention on serious violence.

The Home Office is launching a nationwide call for evidence to inform the government’s new Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy. They are urging members of the public, especially women, to fill in the short online survey to share their experiences and views on the issue which will be reflected in the VAWG strategy, to be published in March.

As well as the public survey, the Home Office is setting up focused discussions with a range of representatives from the sector, and has involved charities in directly engaging with victims to gather their views. The new VAWG strategy will help the government to tackle these crimes and to increase the understanding, and ability to tackle, emerging forms of violence against women and girls such as upskirting and revenge porn.

Please join us here on Thursday at 11am. If you can’t join us on the day, please leave your question here in advance.

As always, please remember our webchat guidelines - one question per user, follow-ups only if there’s time and most questions have been answered, and please keep it civil. Also if one topic is dominating a thread, mods might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. (We may suspend the accounts of anyone who continues after we've posted to ask people to stop, so please take note.) Rest assured we will ALWAYS let the guest know that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

Many thanks,
MNHQ

Webchat with Victoria Atkins MP, Home Office Minister for Safeguarding and Extremism, on Thursday 11th February at 11am.
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MNHQ

MichaelMumsnet · 09/02/2021 15:00

@SqeakyHindge

Could you include link to survey please
Here's the info page: Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Call for Evidence

The survey link is part way down the page.

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 10/02/2021 10:47

Hello

Thanks for all your questions so far. We've got a lot now on issues around single-sex provision and gender identity so we're going to ask you not to post any more on that theme please. As ever we'll recommend that the guest address topics that have drawn a lot of questions.

Thanks
MNHQ

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 10/02/2021 10:54

[quote Al77]@JuliaMumsnet Would it be possible to move this thread into the wider mumsnet boards as well? (It doesn't seem to be a feminism specific thread) in fact it seems like it would be missing a lot of people with very relevant input.[/quote]
Hello - it's sticked around in lots of places (Active, AIBU, Chat, Relationships, Politics, In The News etc)

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 11/02/2021 11:02

Morning everyone and thanks for your questions

The minister is standing by and ready to go - welcome Victoria!

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 11/02/2021 11:44

Hi Victoria. As you’ll know, women, and particularly mothers, have been hit incredibly hard by the measures associated with the pandemic. They’re more heavily represented in employment sectors that have seen the most job losses and furlough (the IFS said women are 47% more likely to have lost job, and according to the ONS parents were twice as likely to be furloughed as those without children).
Mothers are doing the bulk of home schooling and other childcare: eight out of ten mothers surveyed on Mumsnet say responsibility for home-schooling falls largely to them. This is just schoolwork - according to the ONS women spent 66% more time doing childcare than men during the first lockdown. The IFS said under the last lockdown, mothers were able to do just one-third of the uninterrupted work hours that dads did in couples where both partners work.

Women with jobs and children are running on empty. One third of Mumsnet users surveyed said the demands on them during lockdown had negatively affected their future career path in a way that’s not true for their partner and three-quarters of Mumsnet mothers say COVID has had a negative impact on their mental health. 8 out of 10 mums say the government’s economic response to COVID fails to consider the childcare sector sufficiently. And 75% agreed “Women’s voices aren’t being heard at the top levels of government”.

We believe the government needs a dedicated Women’s Strategy to help rebuild, and to ensure that the real everyday needs of women - from domestic violence support and mental health provision to jobs and childcare - are absolutely baked in to every strand of governmental policy.

We believe the government needs a dedicated women's strategy to address these going inequalities or we're going to find ourselves back in the 70s as far as maternal employment goes before we know it. What do you think? We'd love to help in anyway we can...

MNHQ

RowanMumsnet · 11/02/2021 12:04

Thanks so much to Victoria for taking part and to MNers for your questions - hope you enjoyed the webchat.

We're going to close this thread in a moment but do please head over to take part in the survey for the VAWG strategy.

Thanks
MNHQ

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