Shock new figures fuel fears of more lockdown domestic abuse killings in UK. Calls to the UK’s largest domestic abuse helpline are rising “week on week” as new figures reveal that almost 50 suspected killings may have occurred during the first lockdown.
The charity Refuge, which runs the National Domestic Abuse helpline, said it was “very concerned” by the continuing upward trend in demand for its services, with England a little over a week into its second lockdown. Separate data from Counting Dead Women, a project that records the killing of women by men in the UK, identified 35 murders, with another 12 strongly suspected cases between 23 March and the start of July, when Covid restrictions were largely lifted.
The rate of killings, conspicuously steep in the opening period of the first lockdown, gradually lowers to levels similar to those recorded in previous years. Current calls to and contacts with the National Domestic Abuse helpline, though rising sharply, have not yet reached the levels witnessed during the first lockdown. China's birthrate falls to lowest level despite push for more babies. China’s birthrate has fallen to the lowest level since the Communist country was founded in 1949, in a sign that efforts to head off a demographic crisis have so far failed.
There were 14.6 million births in China in 2019, a drop of about 500,000 from the year before and the third year in a row that the number of births fallen, according to a report from the National Bureau of Statistics published on Friday. Labour MP moves colleagues to tears with domestic abuse story. The Labour MP Rosie Duffield’s harrowing account of her own personal experience of domestic abuse left colleagues in tears in the Commons in what has been described as one of the most moving contributions ever given in parliament.
After months of what she described as terrifying verbal abuse, humiliation and financial control unbeknown to her friends, family and colleagues, she described how she eventually gained the courage to leave a partner. She spoke during a debate on the domestic abuse bill, which the Speaker, John Bercow, said had been “simultaneously horrifying and as moving a contribution” as he had heard in his 22 years in the Commons. Over a third of Britons admit ageist behaviour in new study.
More than a third of British people admit that they have discriminated against others because of their age, according to new research on everyday ageism, with those in their 30s most guilty.
The Ageist Britain report, which surveyed 4,000 UK adults and analysed thousands of tweets and blogposts in the UK, found a further one in 30 people admitted to regularly discriminating against anyone aged over 50 – and more than one in 10 admitting that they don’t even know if they are ageist. “Old fart”, “little old lady”, “bitter old man” and “old hag” were, researchers found, the most used ageist phrases on social media. Other common terms included “ladies/gentleman of a certain age”. Carol Vorderman, who worked with SunLife on the research, said: “The report shows that we’re bombarded with phrases and behaviours which imply that life after 50 must be awful and that it’s ‘downhill all the way’. John Marsden on the 'toxic' parenting pandemic: 'I’ve never seen this level o...
John Marsden has spent decades writing about, teaching and founding schools for young people – and lately, he has been getting worried.
Nearly one in seven Britons could live alone by 2039, study shows. Nearly one in seven people in the UK could be living alone by 2039, according to government figures, which also reveal that those currently living alone are more likely to be renting and feel less financially secure than couples without children.
Analysis from the Office for National Statistics also shows the number of single-person households in the UK is rising sharply. The number of those living on their own increased by 16% between 1997 and 2017, to 7.7 million, said the ONS, which predicted that 10.7 million people could be living alone in 20 years’ time. The study also found people living on their own spend an average 92% of their disposable income, compared with two-adult households who spend 83%. And the costs are not just financial: when it comes to wellbeing, those living on their own report lower levels of happiness and higher levels of anxiety than those living with a partner and no children. The gender wars of household chores: a feminist comic. Blaming social media for child angst? It’s only half the picture. Nothing turns a parent’s heart inside out like the unhappiness of a child, and your own helplessness in the face of it.
By mollycoddling our children, we're fuelling mental illness in teenagers. We talk incessantly about how to make children more “resilient”, but whatever we’re doing, it’s not working.
Rates of anxiety disorders and depression are rising rapidly among teenagers, and in the US universities can’t hire therapists fast enough to keep up with the demand. What are we doing wrong? Nun the wiser: how Call the Midwife secretly became TV's most subversive show. Is Call the Midwife the most misunderstood show on television?
The hugely popular series is frequently dismissed as mere “comfort TV”, yet those critics are wrong. ‘I think my husband thinks Santa does it all’: why women dread the emotional ... If you’re a woman in a heterosexual relationship, chances are that you’re the one doing a disproportionate amount of the work this Christmas: shopping for presents, wrapping them, making up spare beds and decorating the tree, organising the cooking, clearing up the wrapping paper and discarded ribbons, cleaning the plates and storing the leftovers, and a thousand other physical chores in between.
The Office for National Statistics has found that women do 40% more housework and childcare than men. A recent nationwide poll even suggested that British men will spend 11 hours over the Christmas period hiding away from their families. One colleague remarked to me that she has no idea where her husband thinks all the presents magically appear from. “Maybe he still believes in Santa!” Lucy’s mother died when she was young and, ever since, she has felt huge pressure to step into her mum’s shoes, buying all the presents for the extended family. Georgia has Lyme disease. In it for the long haul: why divorce rates are falling fast. I am a child of unhappily divorced people. The gender wars of household chores: a feminist comic. Women still do more household chores than men, ONS finds. Image copyright Thinkstock Women still do more housework and childcare than men, especially between the ages of 26 and 35, figures show. The Office for National Statistics said that, when it came to unpaid chores at home, women were doing almost 40% more than men on average.
Men averaged 16 hours a week helping out at home compared with 26 by women, with those on maternity leave doing the most. The area men do more in is transport, such as driving family members around. Pawsecco, anyone? Millennials splurge on pampered pets. They spend their days lazing about on memory foam mattresses, slurping non-alcoholic wine and wearing gadgets that track how much exercise they do. This is not a typical day in the life of a young person – but rather, in that of their beloved dog or cat. Britain has created a crisis in childhood, says former children’s commissione... Childhood is being ruined in the UK, and the education system under Theresa May’s government is largely to blame. That is the central message of a new book, The British Betrayal of Childhood, published this week by the former children’s commissioner for England, Sir Al Aynsley-Green.
“Is there a crisis in childhood in Britain? My answer is an unequivocal yes,” says Aynsley-Green. “Mrs May’s government is not doing enough for children, especially in education.” Abc womens world 1961 educated women. Civil partnerships to be opened to heterosexual couples. Every couple in England and Wales will in future be able to choose between a civil partnership and marriage when they formalise their relationship, the prime minister has announced. Ending months of uncertainty following defeat in the supreme court, the government has agreed to extend civil partnerships – available to same-sex couples since 2005 – to everyone. Leave those kids alone: 'helicopter parenting' linked to behavioural problems.
Llapse of nuclear family should be applauded due to 'new reality' of single a... Sir James Munby, head of the High Court's Family Division, said many Brits live in households far different than the traditional nuclear family The collapse of the nuclear family should be welcomed and applauded, Britain’s most senior family judge said yesterday. What would the ultimate child-friendly city look like? Imagine you are 10 years old. You live in a medium-sized city and want to visit your best friend, a five-minute walk away, so you can go to the park, another 10 minutes’ walk. Home truths: when relationships and housework collide – The Story podcast. Relationships, marriage, babies: why generation rent is taking a different path – video. What's it like being LGBT in Russia? Share your stories. What keeps young families going? Grandparent power. Grandparents give you cancer. Call it a competition and dads will rush to bring up baby.
British law must recognise Muslim marriage ceremonies. When I had my nikah, my Islamic marriage ceremony, I considered myself a married man. The 'masculine mystique' – why men can't ditch the baggage of being a bloke. Australia says yes to same-sex marriage in historic postal survey. Australia has taken a decisive step towards legislating marriage equality by Christmas after 61.6% of voters in an unprecedented national postal survey approved a change to the law to allow couples of the same sex to marry. The result, announced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, will lead to consideration of a same-sex marriage bill in parliament with the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, promising marriage equality should be law by Christmas.
Abortion stories: from backstreet to legalisation – video. ‘The desire to have a child never goes away’: how the involuntarily childless are forming a new movement. A brief history of divorce. First same-sex couple to marry in Germany celebrate after long wait. First same sex church wedding takes place in Edinburgh. Gay couple will no longer appear in McCain's TV ad after homophobic abuse. Number of working mothers in England rises by a million in 20 years. 'Financial incentives are stacked against mothers staying at home'
Outcry as Azerbaijan police launch crackdown on LGBT community. To be better dads, men need parental leave and flexible working. And a culture change.