Jess Phillips has delivered a striking tribute in parliament to every woman killed by men over the past year.
In a Commons debate to mark International Women’s Day, the Labour MP read out the names of the 130 women who had died at the hands of men since March 8 last year.
“I read these names not only to continue to highlight how male violence can terrorise ordinary women’s lives, but to pay tribute to them and those who didn’t survive and give them the opportunity to be heard,” she told MPs on Thursday.
The reason these women are no longer with us “is because they are hard to see, they are hard to hear and they are hard to believe,” Phillips added.
It is the fourth year the Birmingham Yardley MP has read out the names of the victims of male violence in parliament. The list is compiled by activist Karen Ingala Smith, who runs the Counting Dead Women project.
“I could feel the nervousness in the room that I wouldn’t finish reading the list within seven minutes,” Phillips said, referring to the time limit on MPs’ speeches during debates.
“And that is how we should feel every single minute of every day – nervous that one of our constituents will wake up dead.
“The fear and tension that we felt in our bodies that I wouldn’t get through the list and I would be made to sit down is what victims of domestic violence feel every minute that they walk around their houses,” she continued.
“The second that they wake up in the morning, they feel frightened and that they are going to have to walk on awkward eggshells all day long.”
MPs must hear their stories if next year’s list is going to be shorter, Phillips added.
Ingala Smith said that despite having compiled the names of women killed by men for nine years “it still makes me cry to hear Jess Phillips speak their names in parliament”.
But she criticised the small number of MPs in the Commons for the International Women’s Day debate, tweeting a photo of empty green benches.