Jess Phillips said the global disgust at the Epstein files must be a catalyst for change – but said she was ‘downright furious’ that it takes a crisis to bring about action
Women should not have to “bleed first, ask second” to get institutions tackle violence and abuse, a top minister has said.
Jess Phillips said the global disgust at the Epstein files must be a catalyst for change – but said she was “downright furious” that it took a crisis to bring about action. The Home Office Minister, one of the architects of the Government’s violence against women and girls strategy, said the victims of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein deserved better than platitudes.
It comes as the British Government has been rocked by the scandal, as Keir Starmer faced questions about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite his ties to Epstein. The PM has also come under fire for handing his ex-spin chief Matthew Doyle a seat in the House of Lords despite his support for a councillor who had been convicted of child sex offences.
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Writing in the Guardian, she said: “In the past few weeks, while the nation’s attention has been on the political fallout from the Epstein files, I have seen the opportunity to push for more, for better. To move beyond the throwaway line about the victims being the most important thing – and to actually make them just that.
“Deeds not words are what matter. If repentance and sorrow is all we achieve out of the courage of the Epstein victims, we will have failed; change is all that will suffice. That said, I am weary, tired and frankly downright furious that women and children must wait for a crisis to get progress.
“I wish that systems and institutions didn’t need us to bleed first and act second. Women ask for this at times of calm, we shouldn’t have to scream.”
She said Epstein’s victims deserved a commitment that “those who abused them are actually held accountable so they can’t do it again”. She also called for investment in prevention so there is “less likely to be a future Epstein in a UK classroom today”.
Ms Phillips said she had battled to ensure the Government’s blueprint to prevent violence against women and girls reached into courts, the NHS, the armed forces, housing and schools, rather than being treated as an issue only for the Home Office. She said the NHS needed to prioritise the consequences of abuse as it would diabetes, while schools need to deal with how it affects their pupils and their life chances.
She added: “I am proud of the challenge we have tried to rise to, of the strategy with investment and system change at its heart; but even that we must stretch to meet our ambitions, and it must never only be cared about when it is politically expedient to do so. Epstein’s victims deserve better.”