[ad_1]
Your assist helps us to inform the story
From reproductive rights to local weather change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the bottom when the story is growing. Whether it is investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our newest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light-weight on the American girls combating for reproductive rights, we all know how necessary it’s to parse out the info from the messaging.
At such a crucial second in US historical past, we want reporters on the bottom. Your donation permits us to maintain sending journalists to talk to either side of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans throughout the whole political spectrum. And in contrast to many different high quality information retailers, we select to not lock Americans out of our reporting and evaluation with paywalls. We imagine high quality journalism must be accessible to everybody, paid for by those that can afford it.
Your assist makes all of the distinction.
Newly elected Tory chief Kemi Badenoch has been condemned over an unearthed picture that reveals her making a joke about rape on her private Facebook web page.
The former girls and equalities minister has been criticised by anti-domestic abuse charity Women’s Aid, which stated it was appalled by the picture.
In a post on her personal web page dated from January 2008, which was nonetheless seen on her profile as just lately as this week, Ms Badenoch shared a picture of three males with the caption: “The Drummond Beer Rape incident.”
The image reveals a person mendacity on the ground, whereas one other man sits on prime of him holding a bottle and a 3rd man covers his mouth and nostril.
Women’s Aid known as for Ms Badenoch to take accountability for the post, suggesting jokes about sexual violence perpetuate abuse and misogynistic attitudes in the direction of girls.
Sophie Francis-Cansfield, the charity’s head of coverage, instructed The Independent: “Rape and sexual assault are no laughing matter, and making light of them trivialises the very real and traumatic experiences of countless women and girls.
“There is an epidemic of violence against women and girls which is deep-rooted in misogynistic attitudes like those demonstrated in this ‘joke’.
“Political figures must take responsibility for their words and actions, whether they are recent or not, and act in a way that challenges abuse instead of perpetuating it.”
The Badenoch marketing campaign stated the picture was “from the 1990s during Kemi’s uni days and had been captioned by her friends at the time”.
They added that Ms Badenoch has “been clear she believes this sort of ‘offence archaeology’ has no place in political debate”.
While the {photograph} seems to have been taken years earlier, the picture and its caption had been shared on Facebook by Ms Badenoch on 26 January 2008, when the now Tory chief would have been in her late 20s.
Ms Badenoch was introduced as the brand new chief of the Conservative Party on Saturday morning, following a vote of the membership on the end result of a race to exchange Rishi Sunak that started when the previous PM resigned after the final election loss.
She beat her rival Robert Jenrick by greater than 10,000 votes, and instructed her social gathering: “We have to be honest; honest about the fact that we made mistakes, honest about the fact that we let standards slip.”
She is anticipated to nominate a shadow cupboard over the approaching days.
The former girls and equalities minister has been a powerful advocate for safeguarding girls’s areas and has been vocal on the difficulty of rape and sexual violence.
Ms Badenoch has opposed self-identification for trans individuals, one thing she claims is linked to the safety of ladies from sexual violence. In May, she vowed she is going to “never stop defending” the rights of ladies after receiving letters and playing cards from rape victims urging her to proceed.
[ad_2]
Source hyperlink