The Reader: Two Nobel laureates show us the best that humanity has to offer

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Lodestars: Denis Mukewege and Nadia Murad
AFP/Getty Images
9 October 2018
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The Nobel Peace Prize is a welcome reminder of humanity’s best efforts.

The winners, Yazidi activist Nadia Murad, telling her story of rape and enslavement by Islamic State, and Denis Mukwege, who has treated thousands of women who were victims of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are advocates that policymakers must heed.

What an injustice, then, to see the US government appoint Judge Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court Justice — a man who is the subject of sexual violence allegations, nominated by a President who has laughed off accusations of sexual assault against him personally.

Both of these men now have extraordinary powers to take away women’s freedoms.

These stories may seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum but they are linked.

As long as Donald Trump and his government normalise violence against women they enable others to normalise it too – last week Johnny Depp protested his victimhood in GQ while Cristiano Ronaldo used the malevolent phrase ‘fake news’ to dismiss his accuser. The US is one of the biggest exporters of ideas.

Violence against women and girls is everywhere. In the UK one woman has been killed at the hands of a man every two-and-a-half days since 2012.

We have a long way to go until this violence is recognised as cause and consequence of women’s inequality.
Sophie Walker
Women’s Equality Party

EDITOR'S REPLY

Dear Sophie

I have also been horrified and saddened watching the Brett Kavanaugh saga unfold over the past few weeks. The bravery demonstrated by Christine Blasey Ford in coming forward with her allegations of sexual assault was extraordinary, and it was deeply disheartening to see the way that she was treated. I wonder whether other women will now feel so bold. I’m not sure that I would.

But perhaps the most depressing element was how predictable it all seemed, particularly the actions of the President. News that last night Trump publicly apologised to Kavanaugh for a “campaign of personal and political destruction based on lies and deception” barely even registers as shocking. But it should — we don’t have to accept this. The Nobel winners offer a timely reminder that good people are still working tirelessly to end violence against women. Let’s celebrate them.

Lucy Hunter Johnston, Executive Editor, Features

Bad idea building on existing homes

In PETER Eversden’s letter, he advocates councils allowing and amplifying building on top of existing residential housing [“Councils should rule on planning” October 4].

I am the leaseholder in a flat in London in a small new-build which I bought new eight years ago. Several years ago the freehold was sold, and planning permission was granted to develop further flats on top of this building.

What followed was two years of hell for everyone living and working in the building. Multiple leaks, outbreaks of vermin, extreme dirtiness, and a construction timetable that went over the estimated time by 100 per cent. I think it is ridiculous to allow such construction when people live in a building. It is bordering on immoral. In theory allowing building on existing flats makes sense — in practice it is an extremely bad idea.
James Oestreicher

Cut defence cash in favour of NHS

A FAMILY member recently needed a cataract operation. There were some 20 patients before us in the waiting area of a local, recently built NHS hospital wing. It took four hours from registering to being discharged. Add two hours for travelling and it became a very tiring day. This length of time would be especially tiring for the elderly.

It is time for our out-of-touch politicians living in their ivory towers to break the status quo and study how health services are funded and operated in Scandinavian countries — as well as France, Germany, Singapore and Japan — where medical treatment is at its best, and more or less available on demand.

The Government should review our ever-bulging overseas aid budget and defence spending — it is willing to spend £10 billion on a single aircraft carrier. We deserve better — a well-funded NHS.
Kumudini Valambia

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