'We know that women and girls are not safe on our streets'published at 12:14 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2021
Speaker Alex Maskey opens the meeting to the public and brings the members to order.
In keeping with social distancing regulations, some MLAs are joining the plenary session by video link.
Mr Maskey makes members aware that Rachel Woods of the Green Party has been granted permission to make a statement on the death of Sarah Everard.
The 33-year-old marketing executive disappeared as she walked home in south London. Her body was found in woodland last week.
Image source, NI Assembly“We know that women and girls are not safe on our streets,” says Ms Woods.
The North Down MLA quotes figures obtained by the World Health Organisation, that around 736,000,000 women have been “subjected to physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes”.
“We are not the reason we get attacked,” she says, adding that NI is the only part of the UK which “does not have a violence against women and girls strategy”.
