NICK TROY lauds the young staff at a hotel chain and cinema giant who are ready to take on the bosses for their rights
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Britain’s benefit sanctions are beyond cruel
Punishing those in need doesn’t work from any perspective — that is why the Tory government is refusing to allow access to its own data. It is clear that we need a total overhaul of the system, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE MP
DYLAN MURPHY reports that far from helping people back into work, the sanctions regime is inflicting unnecessary trauma on working-class families
As Saudi Arabia is hailed abroad for its ‘reforms,’ the reality for women inside the kingdom grows ever more repressive. On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, MARYAM ALDOSSARI argues it is time to stop applauding the illusion – and start listening to the women the state works hardest to silence
With Petro, Colombia has been making huge strides towards peace — but is all that at risk with the elections next year? MARK ROWE reports back after joining a delegation to the Latin American country
With violence against women and girls reaching unprecedented levels – particularly in the north of England – Unison North West is driving a union-wide push for education, prevention and trauma-informed support, writes JOANNE MOORCROFT
Amid national economic decay and with a lack of coherent left-wing responses, far-right narratives on women’s safety and immigration have taken root in former Labour heartlands. The WOMEN’S LIBERATION ALLIANCE warns that only a renewed politics rooted in an understanding of class, race and sex can stem the rise of authoritarianism
IT’S almost five years since the Economic and Social Research Council, a government-funded public body, told the UN’s human rights body that the British government’s drive to extend and intensify benefit sanctions “systematically undermines the very idea of economic and social rights as a core component of national citizenship status and/or justifications for such rights on the basis of universal human needs,” making many benefit claimants unable to meet those basic needs for food, warmth and shelter.
The UN agreed, concluding that despite its denialism, the government was breaching the human rights of benefit claimants at every turn. The UN repeated its call as recently as November 2022.
Despite the clarity of the warnings, the government did nothing to improve its treatment of the most marginalised — in fact, since then the situation has only gone downhill. The number of people suffering sanctions hit record levels in 2022.
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