The DWP is facing a court battle over its ‘inhumane’ benefit rules on non-consensual conception.
The hated two-child benefit cap, imposed by the Conservatives and supported by Keir Starmer’s Labour government, discriminates against women who have been forced to conceive children non-consensually.
This means the children were the result of rape.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The limit restricts support through universal credit (UC) to the first two children in a family. It has an exception when a child has been conceived non-consensually – but this only applies to third or subsequent children in a household.
If a woman has had two or more children non-consensually, she will not receive the child element of UC for children subsequently conceived consensually.
Now, two women who had children as a result of rape or coercion by former partners have been given permission to take the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to court for being denied exception to the two-child limit.
‘I was raped at the wrong time’
They say the law penalises them for something over which they had no control – the time at which they were attacked or coerced into conceiving a child.
The Guardian quotes one of the two as saying, “If I had been raped after my first two children were born, the exceptions would be applied, so basically [the DWP ministers] are telling me that I was raped at the wrong time.”
Both women involved in the court case were in relationships with violent and coercive men as teenagers, which suggests to This Writer that there is a social problem here: why are women attracted to men like this? Why do men treat women in this way and why do they think they have a right to?
Whatever the reasons, a crime is a crime and women should not be made to suffer for being victims of it. In the case of rape, the two women say it is degrading and inhumane for them to suffer discrimination because of it.
They say that, by preventing them from claiming an exception to the two-child limit, the rules breach article 3 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which protects the right not to be subjected to degrading or inhumane treatment.
They also argue that the rules breach the ECHR by discriminating against women whose first or second children were conceived non-consensually, compared with adoptive parents or kinship carers, who are entitled to a child element of UC for children who join the family through adoption or kinship care orders, regardless of whether there were already other children in the family.
The Department for Work and Pensions is refusing to comment on active legal proceedings, which is a perfectly reasonable position to take at this time.
This Writer believes it is important to point out that Tory leadership candidate Robert Jenrick wants the UK to leave the ECHR, as does the right-wing political party Reform UK.
Doesn’t that mean these politicians want these victims of rape to be stripped of any protection under the law? How vile is that?
Source: Mothers to take DWP to court over ‘inhumane’ benefit rules on non-consensual conception | Universal credit | The Guardian
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DWP is facing a court battle over its ‘inhumane’ benefit rules on non-consensual conception
The DWP is facing a court battle over its ‘inhumane’ benefit rules on non-consensual conception.
The hated two-child benefit cap, imposed by the Conservatives and supported by Keir Starmer’s Labour government, discriminates against women who have been forced to conceive children non-consensually.
This means the children were the result of rape.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The limit restricts support through universal credit (UC) to the first two children in a family. It has an exception when a child has been conceived non-consensually – but this only applies to third or subsequent children in a household.
If a woman has had two or more children non-consensually, she will not receive the child element of UC for children subsequently conceived consensually.
Now, two women who had children as a result of rape or coercion by former partners have been given permission to take the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to court for being denied exception to the two-child limit.
‘I was raped at the wrong time’
They say the law penalises them for something over which they had no control – the time at which they were attacked or coerced into conceiving a child.
The Guardian quotes one of the two as saying, “If I had been raped after my first two children were born, the exceptions would be applied, so basically [the DWP ministers] are telling me that I was raped at the wrong time.”
Both women involved in the court case were in relationships with violent and coercive men as teenagers, which suggests to This Writer that there is a social problem here: why are women attracted to men like this? Why do men treat women in this way and why do they think they have a right to?
Whatever the reasons, a crime is a crime and women should not be made to suffer for being victims of it. In the case of rape, the two women say it is degrading and inhumane for them to suffer discrimination because of it.
They say that, by preventing them from claiming an exception to the two-child limit, the rules breach article 3 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which protects the right not to be subjected to degrading or inhumane treatment.
They also argue that the rules breach the ECHR by discriminating against women whose first or second children were conceived non-consensually, compared with adoptive parents or kinship carers, who are entitled to a child element of UC for children who join the family through adoption or kinship care orders, regardless of whether there were already other children in the family.
The Department for Work and Pensions is refusing to comment on active legal proceedings, which is a perfectly reasonable position to take at this time.
This Writer believes it is important to point out that Tory leadership candidate Robert Jenrick wants the UK to leave the ECHR, as does the right-wing political party Reform UK.
Doesn’t that mean these politicians want these victims of rape to be stripped of any protection under the law? How vile is that?
Source: Mothers to take DWP to court over ‘inhumane’ benefit rules on non-consensual conception | Universal credit | The Guardian
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
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1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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