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Forced Marriages Consultation on Statutory Guidance

The Forced Marriage Unit (a joint Foreign Commonwealth Office and Home Office initiative) has launched a consultation on the statutory guidance which the Government intends to issue under the provisions of the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 which will set out the responsibilities of all agencies dealing with forced marriage issues. For more information, please click here.

The Equality Bill - Government Response to the
Consultation,

On July 21st the Government published a comprehensive document on the
content of the Equality Bill which also summarises the responses we
received to the Discrimination Law Review consultation held last year.

To read the document; The Equality Bill - Government Response to the
Consultation, click here [ PDF 2.1Mb].

A letter to newspaper editors on breastfeeding by Parliamentary Under Secretary Barbara Follett

In response to media articles about the government's policy on breastfeeding here is a statement from Parliamentary Under Secretary, Barbara Follett, Click here.

Minister announces plans for more diversity in public appointments

Harriet Harman, Minister for Women & Equality, and Ed Miliband, Cabinet Office Minister, today announced new measures to increase the number of women, disabled people, and black, Asian and minority ethnic people appointed to the boards of public bodies, so that they reflect the wider population. For more information, click here.

UK present to UN on implementation of CEDAW

The UK will be examined on their implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), at the UN Headquarters in New York. A delegation headed by Minister for Equality, Barbara Follett, will be questioned by a UN committee on the progress that the UK has made on implementing policies to achieve women’s advancement/reducing discrimination. For more information, click here.

A Statement by the Minister for Women and Equality

Earlier today Harriet Harman QC MP, Minister for Equality, announced details of the Equality Bill. Her full statement can be found here - . Details of the Bill can be seen in "Framework for a Fairer Future – the Equality Bill" , a document which outlines the steps that will be taken to streamline and strengthen the law

National Equality Taskforce

On June 13th, speaking at the Compass Conference "Born Free and Equal", Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, announced a new National Equality Panel, which will investigate and lay out the best available evidence currently available on the relationship between economic inequalities and other social dimensions, such as gender, disability, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity and religion. More information will be provided soon. For the press release, please click here.

Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Women Councillors Taskforce

On 19th May 2008, Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, launched a new BAME Women Councillors Taskforce aimed at increasing the numbers of BAME women councillors. For further information, please click here.

International Day Against Homophobia

Barbara Follett marked the International Day Against Homophobia in a joint statement with Meg Munn, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State on 17th May 2008 at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. For further information, please view the link here.

Flexible working to help 4.5 million more parents

An extra 4.5 million parents in Britain will gain the right to request flexible working, following the publication of the government's independent review today. For further information, please view the link here.

Vacancies For Government Equalities Office Non-Executive Board Members (Closing Date: 2 June 2008)

The Government Equalities Office (GEO) are looking for three non-executive board members to complement the Senior Management Team. For further information, please view the link here.

Government Equalities Office Business Plan 2008 - 2009

The business plan sets out the Government Equalities Office's strategy and priorities for the year ahead. To view the business plan, please click here.

Preparing Britain for the Future

On 14th May 2008, the Government published Preparing Britain for the Future, the Draft Legislative Programme 2008-09, which sets out the UK Government’s plans for legislative and key non-legislative action in next year’s Parliamentary session. For more information, click here.

Budget 2008: What does it mean for women and equalities groups?

The latest Budget demonstrates the Government's continued commitment to creating a fair society with opportunity for all. It builds on past achievements and sets out a range of important new policy measures.

For a Factsheet detailing the impact of the latest Budget on women and other equalities groups please click here.

The Exemplar Employer Report

The Exemplar Employer Initiative was launched in September 2006 - and with the help of Opportunity Now - we have identified 113 exemplar employers that are committed to demonstrating innovative ways of tackling the underlying causes of the gender pay gap.

The Guardian's Work supplement (Saturday 15th March 2008) highlighted the report on its front page - and the full report is now on the Opportunity Now website (from Monday 17th March 2008). For more information, click here.

International Women's Day 2008

On 6 March 2008, two wide ranging debates were held in the House of Commons and House of Lords to mark International Women's Day. Harriet Harman opened the Commons debate, with Barbara Follett closing.

Click here for the Hansard copy of the House of Commons debate.

Click here for the Hansard copy of the House of Lords debate.

Departmental Strategic Objective

The Government Equalities Office has announced details of its Departmental Strategic Objective. For more information, click here.

Inter Ministerial Group on Equalities

Barbara Follett chaired the first meeting of a new Inter Ministerial Group on Equalities on 15 January. For more information click here.

Women Not For Sale

The report Women Not For Sale sets out findings from research commissioned to establish the scale of advertising of women and services offered by women in personal classifieds in the English regional and local press. The research found that the advertising of women, either discreetly or overtly, for sex or sexual services in the regional press is commonplace. Typically, these advertisements are sandwiched between innocuous advertisements for other services and goods. For more information, click here.

2008 - European Year of Intercultural Dialogue

2008 has been designated as the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. In the UK, the National Co-ordinating Body is known as EUCLID; and the responsible government department is DCMS.

We understand that EUCLID plans to host a number of events in 2008 to mark the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. Events include conferences, exchange fairs and training seminars throughout the UK.

In addition to the events, organisations interested in the European Year are encouraged to sign up to the partner section of the EYID 2008 website, which offers a unique networking platform for all people involved in the European Year.

For more information please visit:

www.europeanyearofequalopps.org.uk

www.equalityhumanrights.com

www.interculturaldialogue2008.eu (EU website)

http://inter.culture.info (UK website)