Alliance MP Sorcha Eastwood tells of rape threat as she led school visit to Stormont

The Alliance politician was speaking in parliament during a debate about violence against women and girls on Thursday.

She described herself as a “survivor of abuse”, as she told MPs of her experience of receiving rape threats. Ms Eastwood was visibly emotional as she made her speech in the Commons, which she began by saying: “I am a survivor of abuse myself. Northern Ireland is one of the most dangerous places in Europe to be a woman, I have to say I’m really upset that there are no other members from Northern Ireland here.

“Statistically speaking, there will be people in this building who are the perpetrators, more often the people doing this are people we know, people we love, and that’s what makes it even more traumatic, upsetting and disgusting.”

She continued: “One thing that really, really disturbs me, terrifies me for my life, is incel culture. I am an elected rep in Northern Ireland, I stood for election the first time in 2017 and that was when I received my first rape threat, my first.

“That should not be normal and in recent days previous members have sought to put forward a narrative that that should be taken as part and parcel, not just of public life, but particularly of the life of elected reps in this House.”

MPs from across the House could be heard saying “shame” before Ms Eastwood added that a member of the public “came up and said they wanted to rape me” while she led a school visit at Stormont.

UK justice minister Alex Davies-Jones said that the United Kingdom had become used to statistics that showed that a woman is killed by a man every three days, on average.

Speaking in the Commons she said that the issue “rarely makes the headlines”.

“Their deaths have become normalised, and as a society we have, I think, become desensitised. It is nothing short of a national scandal. Every woman lost is a daughter, a mother, a friend, her life cut brutally short. They are not statistics to me, nor this Government. Their lives matter and we are determined to act”, the Labour MP said.