Counting Dead Women list “painfully long” – but in reality “much longer”

Jess Phillips read out the names of women killed by men in the last year during the International Women’s Day debate in parliament today – a list that was longer than the one read out by the shadow minister in 2021.

The Labour MP and shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding told the House of Commons today: “The list is painfully long, but in reality the list is much longer. We can make it shorter. Let’s act faster.”

Many women “don’t appear on our lists because no-one is ever charged with their killing, or because they die by staged homocide and sudden death, falling from a building, overdose or suicide, and we never look into the history of domestic abuse in their cases”, Phillips explained.

Before going on to the list, she thanked the Speaker’s Office for making time for her to read out the names during the debate every year and praised the work of Karen Ingala Smith and the Counting Dead Women project.

Phillips told MPs: “The perpetrators killed, but it is on us in here if we keep allowing a system where women live under the requirement to give away their labour for free in the pursuit of their own safety.”

She also announced that the Labour Party will be working with the families of the women whose names she has read out over the years – who were invited to parliament this week – to build a “families manifesto for change”.

Referring to Sarah Everard, Phillips said: “The final name on the list last year when I stood here was a name that we all know. Here are the names of the women killed before that supposedly watershed moment.”