EALING Southall MP, Virendra Sharma, has hosted the final British South Asian Youth Summit workshop to discuss issues of violence against women and girls.

The workshop, which was held on Saturday, April 24, aims to tackle violence against women and girls both in the UK and in South Asia.

Some of the young people who attended the workshop presented action plans on how violence against women and girls can be tackled in their home country.

The young delegates from South Asia and the UK worked in country-focused groups to prepare their specific action plan presentations which they later shared during the workshop.

The groups covered the prevalence of violence against women and girls by showcasing stark statistics and recent case studies to fight what is now called the shadow pandemic, which is violence against women during COVID-19.

According to the United Nations, one in three women worldwide now experience physical or sexual violence.

The speakers included a youth activist, Ammaarah Zayna, who is a frontline gender-based violence worker who specialises in gender and racial justice.

Zayna is also a campaigner for Our Streets Now - a movement to end public sexual harassment in the UK by making it a criminal offence and changing the culture that allows it.

Speaking to the delegates Zayna said: "Sexism when combined with other oppressive forces like racism as well as classism, caste systems and sexuality to name a few can lead to intense and at times never ending cycles of gender-based violence.

"There is a huge element of shame attached to gender-based violence.

"This shame and often isolation is what often silences women, girls and people who belong to marginalised gender groups."

The young delegates also heard from Aranya Johar who is a 22-year-old Indian poet and youth activist.

She is the youngest member of the G7's Gender Equality Advisory Council and BBC's 100 women of 2019.

Johar uses social media to address issues like gender equality, mental health and body positivity.

She also uses slam poetry to confront and challenge beauty standards.

During the workshop Johar said: "The experience of being part of the G7 helped me realise the importance of our words and the language we use.

"For the G7 we created a legal book of laws that different countries could take up that could result in a more gender inclusive world and one thing that helped me learn a lot and one thing that I carry on in my activism is that we got to define what it meant to be a woman and that gave us a chance to be inclusive."

The Labour MP later said: "The next generation always has the strength to change the world, and has always changed it, but the challenge is to change it for the better for all, not just a visible

majority.

"If we leave groups behind, leave the vulnerable behind, we haven't succeeded in improving the world.

"So let us always remember the less visible, that don't need charity, just a little humanity and humility from leaders."

Cecilia Jastrzembska, the UK delegate, Senior Policy Advisor and Vice Chair of the Young Fabians said: "To end violence against women, we have to contend with a paradigm which is etched into the very bedrock of society.

"And one of the narratives that we need to challenge with all our force is that women should be modifying their behaviour to avoid feminicidal violence.

"We are not attacked for what we wore, what we drank, when we went home.

"We are attacked because of the actions of our male attackers.

"It is high time campaigns focused on changing male behaviour, not ours.

"We are not the problem."

Virendra Sharma thanked the speakers, praised the work of the delegates and as an MP he committed to help them implement their action plans.

This was the third and final of these workshops, with the first one taking place in February and the second in March.