#BringTheNoise — Women’s March London

Dialogue series — How does U.S. Policy affect the U.K. and the rest of the world?

This week Women’s March Global will be highlighting key supporting organisations supporting in #BringTheNoise — a peaceful march and rally by Women’s March London. We are discussing with three organisations, their view on why this rally is important and how the policy decisions in the U.S. affect the U.K. and the rest of the world.

On Friday, July, 13th, the first day of the US President’s much-discussed visit to the UK, a coalition of organisations will march in protest over the inhumane, divisive, misogynistic and discriminatory policies and rhetoric of the Trump/Pence administration that have resulted in the Muslim ban, the recent scandal of caging and separating children from their parents at borders, mockery of disabled citizen, regression in respect for women’s rights, and its hostile stance on LGBTQIA+ rights.

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Chiara Capraro is the Women’s Rights Programme Manager at Amnesty International UK. She has ten years experience working on policy and advocacy and many more as a feminist activist.

Can you share with us the work you are doing at Amnesty U.K?

My name is Chiara Capraro. I’m the women’s rights programme manager from the UK. I lead on our policy work on women’s rights in the UK but I also work on some aspects of foreign policy such as the Women Peace and Security agenda.

Why is Amnesty International joining in support with Women’s March London #BringTheNoise in response to Trump’s Visit 13th of July?

Well, we’re not concerned with the visit per se. We don’t have a policy regarding, state visits, but of course what concerns us is the human rights situation in the US and the repercussions of US policy globally. We would like our government to raise human rights issues with Trump when he comes over. So that’s why we are supporting the Women’s March London action. We supported Women’s March London in January 2017, when it first started to mobilise at the time of Trump’s inauguration and we continue to stand behind Women’s March London as a collective of diverse activists. Just supporting to ensure as many people as possible have an opportunity to participate in the march, and also to be informed on what’s going on, and to be more informed of the human rights violations that are going on.

Do you feel that in the UK, and elsewhere within Europe, that what is happening in the States in regards to Trump’s policies are affecting the rest of the world?

Yes from a women’s human rights perspective, specifically, we’re concerned with the Global Gag Rule. So, of course this is not a new policy. It’s a policy that has been enacted previously by Republican administrations, but with this administration in particular it has expanded to cover a wider range of funding. So, it has gone from covering about 600 million dollars in family planning funding to about nearly 9 billion dollars of healthcare funding — and the fact that the Trump administration has decided defund the UNFPA. So, of course this has very real tangible consequences for women around the world. We’re relying on that funding to basically be able to provide sexual and reproductive health care. We know that not providing abortions means that women have to resort to unsafe abortion putting their health and lives at risk. This will happen more because of this policy — and it will keep happening as women goes underground to seek abortions, which means that it’s much more dangerous and more women and girls will put their lives at risk because they have no other option.

So, we’re concerned about that. We’re concerned about what kind of message this sends and how it trickles in the political arena globally.

There’s a rise in hate speech in the UK. There’s a rise of racial profiling as well and when it comes to the UK, Amnesty U.K. has addressed this in regards to a few campaigns that you have.

We’re concerned that the current politics in the UK, and in the US, and other countries is very divisive in terms of scapegoating of the most marginalised in society. There is skepticism towards human rights and their universality. Of course, we are concerned about this. In terms of going back to women’s reproductive health and rights, we do a lot of work in Poland for example, where we see a strong backlash on women’s rights. We see a global backlash against feminism and against human rights. I personally think this comes from the fact that we’ve made a lot of progress in the last 400 years for women’s rights. This is shaking the patriarchy and thus this is the reaction.

One thing to celebrate is that feminist movements are really strong right now. From Latin America to Poland to Uganda to the UK as well, and the US. We are resisting and fighting for rights every day. And that’s something we want to celebrate in this event. And we see the rise of women worldwide, gathering around issues critical for their lives.

We all know the United States has withdrawn from the Human Rights Council — what do you feel, in regards to the global impacts of that, given the fact that the U.S. is committing horrendous abuses against immigrant children at this very moment?

We are concerned and we think definitely the US has lost a lot in this case. The Human Rights Council is a space for accountability between governments. So, withdrawing from the space is problematic as it shows that these spaces for accountability of human rights are not seen as valuable by the administration. As a global movement we will keep continuing to make sure that the US is held accountable for human rights abuses.

This is the reason why we gather in the numbers to #BringTheNoise. We must because if they’re not going to be held accountable by the Human Rights Council or other bodies, we must hold them accountable.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think that if there is a silver lining in all of this, it is that people are becoming quite quickly aware of what changes they can see in their lives, and the lives of neighbours, and their friends, and family. And, they’re not standing idly by and they want to do something about it. So, I think that’s extremely important and it’s important to appreciate what human rights are in practice. Which means you have protection, you have protection from violence, including state violence. It’s about the fact that we should really care about and value human rights. Its very, very practical and I think that people are just starting to grasp this more.

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Find out more information on the 13th July Event in London here.

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