Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch has dismissed the government’s VAWG strategy as a “complete distraction,” arguing that teaching boys to respect women should not be a priority because migrants post a more serious threat.
In a post on social media, she dismissed the long-awaited policy document as “just a big mess.”
Badenoch said that it’s not 11-year-old boys who are committing violence against women and girls.
“We need to get people who have come from cultures that don’t respect women out of our country! Not all cultures are equally valid. Labour’s plan to lecture schoolboys to respect women and girls is a complete distraction. This is what a government looks like when they’re completely out of ideas.Deport all foreign criminals. Put more police on our streets.”
Kemi Badenoch
She added that Conservatives have a funded plan to recruit 10,000 extra officers, adding that “pretending a few extra lessons in school will fix this is complete nonsense.”
She asserted that Labour needs to “stop watching Adolesence and get real.” “But they can’t, because they’re too scared, weak and divided,” she said, adding, “They have no serious plan to tackle this problem.”
Badenoch was referring to Starmer praising the programme Adolescence earlier this year. The Tory leader was criticised after telling an interviewer that she had not watched the programme and did not see why she should, because it was fictional.
Badenoch’s remarks on social media came after the announcement of the strategy – which will focus on preventing radicalisation of young men, stopping abusers and supporting victims.
The safeguarding Minister, Jess Phillips, introduced the government’s long-awaited strategy to tackle “the national emergency” of violence against women and girls in the House of Commons, saying it did something “that none before it ever has” by making tackling it a priority across local and national government, the criminal justice system and the voluntary sector.
“We are calling violence against women and girls the national emergency that it is. We are committing to halve these horrific crimes within a decade, and today we publish the strategy that sets us on that journey.”
Jess Phillips
She backed up the arguments used by Katie Lam in the Commons.
Badenoch Accused Of Weaponising Violence Against Women And Girls
Kemi Badenoch has been accused of weaponising violence against women and girls and using “dangerous” and “deeply inaccurate” claims in her response to the government’s plan to tackle the issue.
Ghadah Alnasseri, the Co-executive Director at Imkaan, a charity that supports women from ethnic minority backgrounds, said that Badenoch’s language could contribute to making migrant women less safe.
Alnasseri pointed to attacks on migrant women and women of colour, such as an alleged rape in Walsall that police are treating as racially aggravated.
Alnasseri noted that Badenoch’s rhetoric “is very dangerous,” adding that the majority of victims of sexual and domestic abuse know their abuser.
“It’s deeply inaccurate, it’s misinformation and it’s spreading racism. We know of charities which have had to remove their signs so they are not attacked, where women have to seek help through back doors. This kind of language is really problematic.”
Ghadah Alnasseri
Andrea Simon, the Director of End Violence Against Women coalition, said that gendered crimes were “not an imported problem.”
“It’s hard not to see this rhetoric as political point scoring on a day when landmark measures have been announced to help prevent violence against women and girls.”
Andrea Simon
Simon noted that men’s entitlement to abuse women is a deeply entrenched issue for our society and our shared culture. He added, “Politicians should be educating the public on the realities of who is predominantly at risk of sexual violence, which is most likely to have been perpetrated by someone known to you.”
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