Archive for the ‘Election’ Category

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: Amnesty needs you

5th April 2011 by Mary 2 Comments »

Categories: Election Social Media & Campaigns

On 5 May 2011, voters living in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will have the chance to choose their devolved administrations, which have wide-ranging powers over policy areas including education and support for victims of trafficking.

So if you live in Aberdeen, Aberystwyth or Armagh, make sure your candidates are committed to justice and human rights by asking them to take our pre-election pledge. See which candidates have already signed up by searching on the nifty interactive map below. Then send all your local candidates a message about the issues that matter to Amnesty where you are.

Take action: Wales | Cymru | Northern Ireland | Scotland


View Larger Map and full list of constituencies

Amnesty around the UK
You see, Amnesty doesn’t just work with the Westminster Parliament to ensure human rights and justice are on policy-makers’ agendas. Our regional offices across the UK have made huge progress on devolved issues through close work with MSPs in Edinburgh, MLAs in Stormont and AMs in Cardiff Bay.

    In Wales we helped introduce a strategy to tackle violence against women.
    In Scotland, we’ve been working to end discrimination against Gypsy Travellers.
     In Northern Ireland we're helping to secure an inquiry into institutional child abuse.

This good work must continue. The coming elections are a great opportunity to remind re-elected politicians what we’ve achieved and to engage new ones in Amnesty’s work. Please help us by sending a message to your local candidates today.

Take action: Wales | Cymru | Northern Ireland | Scotland

Live in England or elsewhere and feeling left out? See current actions that everyone can take

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Mother’s Day action, results and what’s next…

30th March 2010 by Naomi 2 Comments »

Categories: Election Maternal Mortality Social Media & Campaigns

Well I certainly remembered to get my Mum a Mother’s Day card this year and make the trip down to South London to see her, but I did have a good reminder! All the previous week I was working with activists and other organisations like Save the Children, Oxfam, White Ribbon Alliance and Mumsnet to urge people to send a Mother’s Day message to the leaders of the 3 UK political parties. This was part of our maternal health campaign where we are drawing attention to the human rights abuses that lead to women dying in childbirth or due to pregnancy-related complications.

The Mother’s Day cards urged the party leaders to support the Manifesto for Motherhood, drawn up by the coalition of NGOs and detailing what needs to be done to tackle this problem. 

Because of the fantastic work of activists and the organisations involved, the 3 UK political parties did endorse the Manifesto.

Labour’s response from Secretary of State of International Development Douglas Alexander:

Conservatives’ response from David Cameron:

Lib Dems’ response from Nick Clegg:

But it doesn’t stop there. We don’t want this issue to go away and we need to ensure that all the parties know that they will be held to account for their committments after the election whirlwind is over.

The UK has been a world leader on this issue for some time, but in the run up to the election we want to ensure that this continues to be the case. We have some significant events this year; the G8 in Canada in June and the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Review Summit in September. We need to make sure that maternal health is the priority at these meetings and real commitments are made.

So please keep sending the cards to the party leaders to show the strength of feeling in the country for this issue. And check out the individual country work we are doing together with women and organisations on the ground.

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