Spending cuts will increase inequalities between women and men and may seriously harm the human rights of some women

James Harrison and Mary-Ann Stephenson recently launched a report that assessed the impact of the public spending cuts on women. Coventry was used as a case study but the findings are applicable to the whole of the UK; namely that the spending cuts will increase inequalities between women and men and may seriously damage the human rights of some women. Here the authors argue that there is a particular problem of the combined impact of multiple cuts on vulnerable groups, for instance women victims of abuse and lone parents. Many public authorities are not doing enough to understand what the impacts of such spending cuts are on vulnerable groups. Better analysis is required and that analysis must then be acted upon.