Page 17 - BPW-UK - E-news - Edition 125 - Ocrober 2024 - FINALE

“What do we want?”

“Safe streets”

Reclaim the Night Nottingham - Saturday 19 October 2024

The march now follows a pedestrianised route through Nottingham’s Victorian Lace Market
where the old haberdashers made and sold buttons and bows to finish a variety of garments.

Women did all the finishing, often for 12-14 hours at a time.

Now, those ‘cottage industries’ have been replaced by cafes and bistros, where the staff serv-
ing are still precariously on zero hours contracts.

However, the night was fine and still and customers sat outside eating and drinking as 400
women and girls filed past them, chanting loudly.

“Say it once, say it again, there’s no excuse for violent men”

Staff and diners cheered loudly and reached for information leaflets explaining why we march.
More HERE Even the bus drivers at an intersection tooted and waved in solidarity.

Mel Duffield-Jeffs, who worked with previous Nottingham Police Commissioner, Sue Fish, to

create a new set of questions to use with rape victims going into a Police station, reiterated the
need for all of us to look and listen out for women in trauma.

The women of Leeds challenged the Police in 1977, after the introduction of equal opportuni-

ties, to tell men to stay at home too, while the Yorkshire ripper was on the loose.

Changing mindsets is often a long and arduous process, yet Nottingham and other big cities
continue to shout out, one year at a time.

Ros Horsley,

North West and Midlands Area Coordinator, BPWUK

Marshalls from the Nottingham Women’s Centre
Marchers
(Mel Duffield-Jeffs is on the left)