Welcome to the new Women's Action Network Blog

We have felt for some time the need to engage members in direct interaction with each other, and here is your chance to do so.  You can browse, add an item or take part in any ongoing discussion, and to give you a start we have placed a couple of items ready to consider, and perhaps to comment on.  Happy blogging!

A recent report from the Ministry of Justice on the new legislation against forced marriages in the UK said that in its first year of operation, 46 protection orders had been issued.  This clearly indicates that the new law is having a significant impact, but the actual scale of the problem may be much wider.  The report also draws a clear distinction between forced and arranged marriages, the latter being defined as with the free and full consent of both parties.  It is possible to wonder if in the real world this distinction is always so clear. Amnesty’s International Secretariat (IS) recently suspended its head of the Gender Unit following an interview she gave to the Sunday Times, in which she expressed concern that Amnesty planned to share a platform on an international tour about Guantanamo Bay with Moazzam Begg and Cageprisoners, some members of which are known extremists.  Yet one of Amnesty’s core values is freedom of expression and association, which in many cases we have worked on includes publication.  This is a tough one.  If you have a view, feel free to say what you think