Monday, 25 January 2016

Weekly News

Sex crimes against children rocket 75%

Home Office figures recorded 36,855 child sex offences in the year to September 2015. In the past 4 years child sex offences have increased by 75% (in England and Wales). Telford and Wrekin are the areas with the highest rates of child sex crimes, according to the data. The article (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sex-crimes-against-children-rocket-7243478#rlabs=3%20rt$category%20p$5) consists of multiple statistics which show which areas have the highest rate of child sex crimes.
This article stood out to me, as I'm sure it did to lots of other people. It stood out simply because of the large numbers of child sex offences. After reading this I found it very disturbing and disgusting that people would do such things, and these numbers are just for England and Wales; don't even want to know what they would be for the rest of the world. I think this article was written to raise awareness about this very serious issue to hopefully try and prevent it somehow. 

Tuesday, 19 January 2016

Weekly News

Women paying more than men for everyday product thanks to 'unacceptable' gender price gap.


Research found that hundreds of the products aimed at women are more expensive than the 'male' equivalents. These products include toys, clothes and beauty items; The Times found that 37% of these products were more expensive on average. An example of this is in Topshop; "a roll-sleeve white T-shirt for women costs £12 but a Topman roll-sleeve white T-shirt is £8." Some people debate whether we need gendered products at all since many products are the same for men and women. Maria Miller, chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee called the findings "unacceptable" and said that "Retailers have got to explain why they do this."
I agree with this point of view as personally I have always thought that women's products were more expensive, especially clothes. However, this shouldn't be the case, especially if they are products from the same shop. Why should someone pay more for a product just because they are male or female? This issue is very similar to the "tampon tax" argument, where "VAT is charged for women's sanitary products because they are classified as "non-essential luxury items".