In the lead up to the general election on December 12th, we will be detailing what each of the main political parties are promising to do for women. Next up, the Green Party.

Of-course every promise made by a political party is important and can have an impact on the lives of women everyone so we're not going to detail everything - that's what the manifestos and tv debates are for. Our aim is simple - to identify those promises which call for action to be taken specifically for women so you know where each political party stands when it comes to the women's rights and problems women face.

We're also not endorsing any particular party. We just want to make sure that you have the tools to make an informed decision. Because it's important. Because it's your future.

So to begin with, taken from the manifesto, here is what the Green Party are promising to do for women:

Work:

The UK's Green Party say they want to close the gender pay gap by requiring "all large and medium size companies to carry out equal pay audits and redress any inequality uncovered both in terms of equal pay for equal work, and recruitment and retention practices which create a glass ceiling which needs to be shattered." To ensure this happens they want to "change the law so it’s easier to take action against employers in unequal pay cases."

To help with diversity at the highest level, the party say they want to install "a 40% quota for women on major company boards" because they "recognise the many barriers faced by women and gender non-conforming people in male- dominated spaces, and know that tackling the ‘boys’ club’ atmosphere in workspaces is crucial to tackling inequality in the workplace." They also want to "support employers to explore the benefits of offering menstruation and menopausal leave to workers."

Health:

The party manifesto says they want to "focus funding to provide better reproductive health services" to "ensure that all forms of birth control are free" and "to give women a real choice of the birth control that works best for them." They also want to "improve access to high quality care during pregnancy and ensure that all women are entitled to the care of a single midwife through prenatal care, birth and the first month of post-natal care."

The party plans to to expand baby clinics "so that women can get access to health visitors and take their babies for regular check-ups at a location and time that is convenient for them."

Safety:

The party are strongly against misogyny and want to make it a "hate crime across the UK and increase the police’s capacity to deal with domestic violence and misogynistic hate crimes." They say the country needs "an intersectional approach to hate crime, which recognises the groups of women who are most at risk."

To achieve this they plan to "establish a new press regulatory regime which will allow women to make formal complaints about media coverage that will encourage misogyny against women" because "this regime will allow for third party complaints to be made, on behalf of women negatively affected by media coverage. "

They also want to "introduce a regulatory framework for online harms to ensure social media companies take responsibility for how their platforms are being used and invest in technological solutions to address misogyny and online harassment."

To deal with abuse they plan to "develop and implement a UK-wide strategy to tackle gender-based violence, including domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), and trafficking. This will include working with perpetrators to prevent them from continuing to abuse." In parliament they want to "develop and implement a robust plan for ending bullying and sexual harassment."

They also want to "reverse cuts to legal aid to prevent survivors being forced to represent themselves against their abusers in court and introduce a new Domestic Abuse Bill, which enables prosecution of economic abuse." Also, by rolling back "the cuts to domestic violence support centres and women’s refuges," and increasing funding, they hope "to provide more safe and secure accommodation for women and their children."

To further help victims of abuse, the party wants to "put funding for Rape Crisis Centre services on a sustainable footing so that every survivor of sexual assault or violence receives proper support." They say they will also "increase and ring fence the Rape Support Fund and ensure funds are provided via the Victim Surcharge."

Education:

The Green Party say they want to "train school staff in spotting and stopping sexual harassment and bullying, to ensure that schools are safe places for all to learn in" and want to "fund schools to provide free eco- friendly sanitary products to pupils."

In schools, they want to "properly fund training to support the delivery of comprehensive, age- appropriate Personal Health and Sexual Education (PHSE) lessons in schools covering all aspects of sex and relationships, with a focus on consent."

Justice:

To Green Party say they want to help the women born in the 1950s who were "penalised by unnecessarily abrupt changes to the pension age brought in by the Coalition Government" by making them the first people to receive the Universal Basic Income that the party wants to role out to every UK resident. They say they "will also look at additional ways of addressing this injustice, which has affected hundreds of thousands of women."

They party also wants to "remove the spousal veto so that married trans people can acquire their gender recognition certificate without having to obtain permission from their spouse." They say they are also keen to "change the law so an X gender marker can be added to passports for non-binary and intersex people who wish to use it, and update the Gender Recognition Act to allow trans youth and non-binary people to get legal recognition through self-declaration."

The Green Party say they want to "follow the evidence that shows that prison is particularly counter- productive for women, trapping them in lives of crime." They therefore want to "support and develop a network of specialist women’s centres in order to reduce the female prison population. These small-scale custodial centres will offer pastoral support to women to address the issues that led to them offending."

Representation:

The party wants to "expand the Access to Elected Office Fund to support" a number of different groups of people including women, disabled people and ethnic minorities to stand for election. They also want to "require all political parties to report the diversity of their candidates, so that progress in selecting more women and minorities to contest Westminster and local government seats can be monitored."

Foreign affairs:

Sian Berry's party wants to help women abroad by increasing "the proportion of aid paid to individuals through electronic cash transfers, providing regular monthly payments to women in the developing world." This they say will build "on evidence showing that greater control over household resources by women can result in spending that benefits children and builds economic resilience." Within the EU, they want to "extend the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights to give women in all EU countries access to legal, safe and affordable abortion services."

Source: https://campaigns.greenparty.org.uk/manifesto/