Remembering Sarah Everard; resisting gendered and state violence

Hope Worsdale - Digital Comms & Campaign Lead at Just Treatment - attended the vigil for Sarah Everard on Saturday. This is her personal reflection of the events and their implication for Just Treatment's fight for health and social justice.

On Saturday 13th March, I went to the vigil for Sarah Everard at Clapham Common - travelling along the same roads that Sarah Everard herself walked. I went not only to mourn for and pay my respects to Sarah, but also to mourn for all women that have died at the hands of men, and to bring attention to the widespread issue of gendered violence that is rife in our society. Because actually, Sarah could have been any of us.

I arrived shortly after 6pm, to a calm and peaceful atmosphere. Hundreds of candles and bouquets of flowers lay around the bandstand, and a masked and distanced crowd listened intently to impassioned speeches commemorating our sisters who have died at the hands of male violence. 

What happened next left not just myself and the other vigil attendees - but the whole nation - in disbelief. 

Metropolitan Police officers proceeded to advance on the centre of the crowd, forcibly surrounding, snatching, and violently arresting women. I witnessed 10 male police officers dragging away one woman. I saw others shoving women to the ground. I saw women having to wash wounds that resulted from police aggression. One officer had to be told by his colleagues to calm down because of how violent he was being. So many women were screaming and crying because of what was happening. 

All we wanted to do was come together as women and collectively mourn in a safe and supportive atmosphere. Yet the deliberate actions of the Metropolitan Police turned the event into a dangerous and violent space which caused even further anger, upset and trauma. And these actions were totally unnecessary - many other vigils took place across the country without violence or police intimidation.

Attending an event like this is not a decision that I or anyone there took lightly. As someone who works in healthcare campaigning, protecting and strengthening people’s right to health is of paramount importance. But this was such an historic moment that I and many other women simply could not ignore. We needed to come together to grieve for Sarah and to take a stand against what her case and the cases of hundreds of other women represents - which is that simply existing as a woman in society means being subjected to violence. So when we talk about safety, it’s not just the pandemic that’s putting people at risk. It’s gendered and state violence too - and we have to act.

Sarah’s murder and the events of this weekend have shocked the nation, and been a catalyst for many important discussions on gendered and state violence in the UK.

We’re living in a society where now three women a week are killed, mostly by their partner or a family member at home. Four more women in abusive relationships kill themselves each week. New polling has found that 97% of women aged 18-24 have experienced harassment. What we are talking about is not just a case of a few monstrous men, but a widespread and endemic system of violence. 

But the case of Sarah Everard and countless others before have shown that expanding police presence and powers is not the answer to solving this problem. It’s not the answer to keeping our communities safe.

There is a decades-long history of sexism, racism and violence within the police that our society needs to wake up to and reckon with. From the state-sanctioned abuse of women by undercover spy cops who infiltrated justice movements; to the insulting misconduct of police officers mocking the murder of women (as in the case of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry). From the disproportionate numbers of deaths of black people at the hands of police (Sarah Reed, Christopher Alder and Sean Rigg to name just a few); to the violent way that police often respond to people experiencing mental health crises.

All of these things negatively impact on the health and wellbeing of our communities. And at the same time, the Government has been chipping away at vital services that provide meaningful support to people experiencing violence or poor health - from domestic violence refuges to youth mental health services to drug and alcohol services. Our health is affected by a much wider range of issues and institutions than just the NHS, and - as argued in the NHS New Deal - unless we tackle these wider issues health inequality will continue to grow.

Police are already abusing the powers they have. Yet the government plans to give them even more powers in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill being heard in Parliament today. This bill means that any protest which puts a subsection of the population at risk of ‘serious annoyance’ would be defined as criminal and punishable by up to ten years in prison. In essence, this will empower police and the government to choose which protests they want to declare illegal and then repress them using the threat of years behind bars.

This authoritarian move should alarm us all. Our collective rights have been fought for - and won - off the backs of decades of protest and activism which have forced change and shaped the course of history. As healthcare campaigners, we stand on the shoulders of many of these people who have organised to defend and extend our right to health. 

We have a long way to go in the fight against gendered violence - and the way we resist this and so many other attacks on our rights and wellbeing is by collective organising and action. The Government’s proposals seek to curtail and repress an essential part of our democracy. We cannot let them.