Proposals to protect women in York 'don't go far enough'
The Women's Equality Party in York is responding to Government plans for plain clothed officers in bars and nightclubs.
The Women's Equality Party in York is arguing that big structural changes are needed in society to protect women.
It's as the Government's proposing the use of plain-clothes police in pubs and clubs to make women feel safer.
Sally Duffin is leader of the York branch of the Women's Equality Party, and says the plans don't go far enough: "It really is a token gesture, and it's not addressing the underlying structural problems that we're still facing.
"It's not preventing and it's not addressing the structural problems within the police service, within the courts and within the criminal justice system - and the way that women are made to feel unsafe in society.
"Women have no faith in reporting sexual assaults to the police; they have no faith in the criminal justice system and we have no faith in politicians prioritising our needs. We are 52% of the population - don't forget that.
"Experts have been saying that you've got to give more funding to domestic abuse services and specialist support services for women. Experts have been saying for years about the dreadful conviction rates for rape and how a woman is killed by a man every 3 days in the UK.
"Yes they (politicians) can say that they want to do more, but there's no track record of them doing anything about this.
"The message that it sent to young women is 'don't go out at night; don't behave like this'. We've been telling them to modify their behaviour in society, and we've created these two worlds: a world for women and a world for men - that's got to end".
Sally says it's important for men to join the conversation and to help stop violence and abuse against women: "We have to start looking at the messages that are sent to young boys. Get away from this lad culture and 'boys will be boys', as that excuses so much unacceptable behaviour.
"Start listening to women and believing them. Men need to call out bad behaviour when it's happening. We know that it's not all men that are the problem, but we don't know which ones are the problem; we haven't seen enough action from the other men to make it so.
"There's a vast amount of abuse that's taking place in the workplace and at home - there's far more women suffering abuse and harassment in all these other locations, so just focusing on bars and nightclubs seems like a very token gesture".
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that while new measures are being introduced, it was appalling that women still suffered fear, intimidation and threats. He said: "I think it is appalling that women still suffer the fear, the intimidation, the threats - and I say that as a son, a husband and a brother of a sister.
"And that's why we are increasing the number of police by 20,000, we've heard new measures to make the streets safer with CCTV and lighting overnight, we've got two bits of legislation going through the House of Commons to increase the sentencing.
"I was a justice minister twice - I've been looking at those issues, I worked on the regional increase in stalking sentences. But clearly we've got to do more.''
Their comments come after Downing Street said it was taking a series of "immediate steps" to improve security, including the rollout across the country of pilots of a programme where uniformed and plain clothes officers seek to actively identify predatory and suspicious offenders in the night-time economy.
Dubbed "Project Vigilant", the programme can involve officers attending areas around clubs and bars undercover, along with increased police patrols as people leave at closing time.
Other steps announced by Downing Street include a doubling of the Safer Streets fund, which provides neighbourhood measures such as better lighting and CCTV, to £45 million.