Leeds students’ union leads call for misogyny to be reclassified as a hate crime

Amara Relf, Union Affairs and Communications Officer at LUU worked with fellow officers at Liverpool Guild of Students and Newcastle University SU to launch a petition urging the Government to update the Sentencing Act 2020 to record crimes motivated by misogyny as hate crimes and introduce tougher laws for online abuse.

Student officers at the three universities have already amassed enough signatures to trigger a government response to their petition, but aim to reach 100,000 signatures to secure a parliamentary debate on the issue.

Leeds University Union’s union affairs and communications officer Amara Relf said: “We’re calling on every students’ union in the country to share this petition with their members to show nationwide strength of feeling on this important issue.

“Male violence against women and girls is a growing problem. Working together as a student movement we aim to influence the Government to recognise and address it through harsher sentencing, increased reporting, and a clampdown on everyday harassment - making life safer for women at university and in the wider community.”

In 2021, The Law Commission recommended against adding sex or gender as a protected characteristic for aggravated offences.

At the time, the commission stated that adding “sex or gender” to the protected characteristics for aggravated offences and enhanced sentencing would be ineffective at protecting women and girls and in some cases, counterproductive - making it more difficult to secure prosecutions and creating unhelpful hierarchies of victims.

However, Labour’s 2021 green paper ‘Ending Violence Against Women and Girls’ backed changing the law to make misogyny a hate crime, and empowering judges to hand out enhanced sentences when the link is shown between the crime and the victim’s sex or gender.

The petition calls on the Government to fulfil its pledge to change the law.

LUU’s Amara Relf collaborated with Newcastle University Students’ Union wellbeing and communities officer Lily Allan and Liverpool Guild of Students deputy president Holly Thompson to launch the petition.

A joint statement from the group said: “When we began our roles as sabbatical officers, one priority was clear: improving student safety. Very quickly, it became apparent that while serious sexual offences can carry severe sentences, the everyday behaviours that shape women’s lives; catcalling, groping, sexually suggestive comments and harassment are too often minimised, overlooked, or left entirely unpunished.

“Sexual harassment, as its own category, is rarely criminalised in practice. This lack of consequence not only enables harmful behaviour but actively discourages reporting.

“This is why we have launched a petition calling for misogyny to be recognised as a hate crime.”

In England and Wales alone, more than one million crimes involving violence against women and girls were recorded in 2022/23, around 3,000 offences every day - a 37% increase over the previous five years.

Last year Owen Lawrence shot two women with a crossbow just a short distance from University of Leeds before turning the weapon on himself. It was later discovered that he had published a manifesto online detailing plans for “terrorism, revenge and misogynistic rage”.

To sign the petition, visit https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/746640