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Picket of Camden Council

WinVisible | 26.02.2003 16:43

Wednesday 26 February Camden Council meets to discuss more cuts to our services - after £15 million recent cuts. Women with disabilities are calling a 14-hour Community Picket & Speak-out, 8am-10pm at Camden Town Hall, Judd St, WC1

Picket of Camden Council
Picket of Camden Council


All welcome - women and men with disabilities, pensioners, mums, home helps and other carers, war veterans and their families, asylum seekers, kids... Drop by, or stay as long as you can - bring food, hot drinks, musical instruments...

Downing St has earmarked at least £3.5 billion to kill and disable women, children and men in Iraq. People, animals, water, land & air are already poisoned by oil pollution and nuclear contamination from uranium-tipped bombs used in the last Gulf war. Cancer rates have spiralled. Many are born with disabilities. Because of sanctions, at least half a million children died, and girls as young as 10 undergo breast cancer operations without painkillers.

But there‚s no money for benefits and services for those of us in the UK who have disabilities or need protection. Those of us who are asylum seekers fleeing war zones, seeking protection from rape, other torture and devastation, are attacked, left destitute, detained with our children, and deported. Although many have disabilities, we are denied accommodation, food, disability benefits. Even war veterans can't get decent pensions - partners and mothers are left to cope with the trauma and disability war has inflicted on their loved ones. In Iraq as in Britain, the government couldn't care less about our survival and welfare.

Instead of pressing for an increase in the inadequate grant they get from central government, Camden and other councils have gone along with this. As a result, we are less able to live independently and have to rely on already overworked relatives, if we have them - usually women. Camden must take responsibility for denying our needs and robbing us of our services - more than £15m worth!

* No food shopping and cleaning - vulnerable people will go without food and get ill.
* Charging pensioners and others an extra £2 a week for meals on wheels.
* Privatising the hands-on care that's left - home helps will lose their jobs and we will all suffer from the drop in care, pay & conditions.
* Charging people with severe disabilities - we pay or get threatened with court.
* Making some people‚s needs a low priority - so our services are taken away.
* Forcing people into residential homes - if they decide home care 'costs too much'.
* Cutting services for mothers, children and young people - play centres, libraries...

In an inaccessible world, all people with disabilities have to work hard just to survive, but women with disabilities work even harder. Services are already rationed, and those of us who are Black and immigrant are often judged to deserve even less. Most users of homecare are older women. After a lifetime of waged and unwaged caring work for families, friends and communities, we're all entitled!

Every cut pays to bomb women, children and men dismissed as 'casualties' or 'collateral damage'. We refuse to let this happen.

4th Global Women's Strike, Saturday 8 March 2003, International Women's Day:

WOMEN SAY NO WAR - INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING

11.30am Parliament Sq MARCH to Grosvenor Sq; 2pm SPEAKOUT at the US Embassy

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