Dear sisters and brothers,
We urgently bring to your attention a Women’s Open Letter against the Welfare Reform Bill & Policing and Crime Bill.
Both Bills are now before Parliament. They are related: the Welfare Reform Bill is a devastating attack on women, especially mothers, and what’s left of the Welfare State. The Policing and Crime Bill further criminalises women who resort to prostitution to survive. Given the economic crisis they are legislating for destitution and criminalisation.

Dear sisters and brothers,
We urgently bring to your attention a Women’s Open Letter against the Welfare Reform Bill & Policing and Crime Bill.
Both Bills are now before Parliament. They are related: the Welfare Reform Bill is a devastating attack on women, especially mothers, and what’s left of the Welfare State. The Policing and Crime Bill further criminalises women who resort to prostitution to survive. Given the economic crisis they are legislating for destitution and criminalisation.

As women we defend women’s independence, their entitlements and incomes; and the recognition of women’s enormous contribution to society and the economy, including through unwaged caring work for children and others. These Bills must be halted. They would throw the struggle against sexism two generations back, dragging every community and struggle for change back with it.

If you are interested in reclaiming a neglected tradition of feminism, that of Eleanor Rathbone, Virginia Woolf and Josephine Butler, please join with us by signing the WOMEN’S OPEN LETTER. If you are a man, please circulate this among women friends and colleagues.

Invest in caring not killing,

Selma James & Nina Lopez (Global Women’s Strike), Kim Sparrow (Single Mothers’ Self-Defence), Cari Mitchell (English Collective of Prostitutes) and Niki Adams (Legal Action for Women) 

To read the OPEN LETTER click here.