Agenda Alliance campaigns for women and girls at the sharpest edge of adversity. These are women who have experienced poverty and abuse, and its connected repercussions. We see every day that women and girls across Britain are facing a crisis of unmet need.
The significant challenges women and girls share with us span every area of government: health, housing, social care, the criminal justice system, education and immigration. Many have no safe place to call home, are living with long-term mental health needs, or use substances to cope.
What we and our member specialist frontline organisations see every day is that the very services which are meant to help, public and voluntary sector services, often stigmatise, refuse or are unable to support these women. Their serious problems are left unaddressed, compound one another, and worsen. Escalation could be prevented, lives could be saved, if public services intervened sooner.
- We need to stop hoping for a cure and prevent women and girls from facing poverty and abuse
- Number of women sleeping rough on England’s street may be nine times higher than government thinks
This is why women and girls need a champion at the highest level of government – only a secretary of state has the power to drive forward change across the range of issues women and girls experience.
We want government to listen to women like Nici, a member of Agenda Alliance’s advisory network, who said: “Policymakers need a kick up the butt. They need to do something, and they need to do it fast otherwise there are going to be so many more disadvantaged women; more suicides, homelessness, child removal.”
Nici has important expertise to contribute to building solutions to support women and girls, because she has lived experience of the difficulties in accessing support. We believe politicians need to be hearing and valuing voices like hers.