School of Law hosts Women’s Parliament

Students and staff from The University of Buckingham’s School of Law hosted a Women’s Parliament in the Moot Court on 9 December.

There were 20 participants, including six from The University of Reading. Everyone had a nameplate with a logo designed by Natalie Turney, and produced by Lewis Hutt, Faculty Assistant, with the support of Susie Harper, Faculty Administrator.

Speaking of the event, Jocelynne Scutt, Senior Fellow of the School of Law, stated:

“The motion covered The Beijing Platform, which is currently under scrutiny as 2025 is the 30th year of its coming into being and nation states undertaking to implement its 12 provisions. Each participant spoke to the motion for five minutes, with a variety of contributions ranging over women’s rights from the pay and pensions gap, violence against women, women’s finance rights, women rights in conflict, and women’s campaigning for equality.”

Read more about the motion below.

The Women’s Parliament sitting on Monday 9 December at Buckingham in Buckinghamshire in the Moot Court at the University of Buckingham Law School:

A. Notes that the United Kingdom:

1. In 1995 endorsed and signed the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action;
2. Endorses and supports the UN 16 Days of Action to End Violence Against Women (25 November-9 December 2024);
3. Has committed to implementing the provisions of the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action;
4. Has undertaken to taking positive steps to end violence against women.

B. Observes that consistent with the foregoing, the United Kingdom government must recognise and acknowledge that whatever steps it has taken since 1995, these have been insufficient to act effectively on:

1. Women and poverty
2. Education and training of women
3. Women and health
4. Violence against women
5. Women and armed conflict
6. Women and the economy
7. Women in power and decision-making
8. Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women
9. Human rights of women
10. Women and the media
11. Women and the environment
12. The girl-child

C. Demands that the United Kingdom government –

• Acts immediately to institute action to end the pay gap and the pensions gap by:

1. instituting Work Skills Value Enquiries (WSVEs) to assess the work skills developed and exercised by women in traditional women’s industries such as care work, childcare, librarianship, teaching, hairdressing, secretarial work, shop sales, cleaning, hospitality and all areas of work where women’s skills are undervalued and underpaid;
2. setting quotas for equal numbers of women on all government decision-making bodies, boards and committees, and all private sector and corporate boards with a target date consistent with CEDAW General Recommendation (GR) 40;
3. resolving in mediation with women born in the 1950s the dispute arising from discrimination and maladministration in the implementation of the change of women’s state pension age from 60 to 65.

• Reviews, updates and consolidates:

1. legislation addressing cyber-based violence against women to demonstrate its commitment to ending this pernicious attack on women’s rights, safety, security and wellbeing;
2. legislation addressing unlawful killing to ensure that women have equal access to the law of self-defence, taking into account the battered woman reality, and that men are not excused from murder by allowing an excuse of a partner’s alleged infidelity, whatever other matters or circumstances are alleged, so that section 55 (6)(c) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, ‘the fact that a thing done or said constituted sexual infidelity is to be disregarded’, is properly implemented as intended.

• Frames and implements laws, policies and practices relating to global warming, climate change, the environment and biodiversity so as to ensure that the differential impact on women and girls is incorporated, addressed, and overcome.
• Establishes a Women’s Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, with a properly resourced, staffed and funded secretariat, a regular programme of meetings with the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers, its members nominated by women’s organisations constituted by a minimum number of members and reflecting the 52% of the population who are women, as an institutional mechanism consistent with the Beijing Platform and Declaration of Action.
• Introduces gender budgeting and gender impact assessments into all government departments and bodies, in relation to policies, practices and programmes, and compulsory gender impact assessments for all laws impacting on women.
• Reviews its commitment to the Beijing Platform and Declaration of Action so as to speed its implementation of its provisions, and supports the holding of a UN International Women’s Conference to formulate a Platform and Declaration of Action to take into account the pressing need to move toward equality and human rights for all women and girls.
• Consistent with the signing and ratification (in 1986) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) introduces a Women’s Rights Act incorporating the provisions of CEDAW and the General Recommendations (GRs) of the CEDAW Committee.

THE WOMEN’S PARLIAMENT
DECEMBER 2024