On March 3rd, 2021 Sarah Everard was abducted by a Metropolitan Police Officer, Wayne Couzens. Her body was found a week later in Kent, two hours away from where she was kidnapped. In the weeks after her disappearance, it became clear that there was still an issue with the way women are treated in our society – this was made even clearer by the treatment of those who attended a vigil for Sarah’s life, by the Metropolitan Police. With an overwhelming amount of responses from thousands of people on social media, the severity of this treatment was seen by all. This is a real social issue that needs to be tackled head on.

As a way to honour Sarah Everard, and all of the women who have died in the last 12 months due to male violence, as well as to educate the year in how close to home this issue is, the Year 13s at Beverley Joint Sixth form walked out of lessons. This was an issue everyone had struggled with, and a survey of the women in the year only proved this fact. The Head Girl at the Sixth Form, as well as other female students, organised the protest during school hours to attempt to make a change in the circle that they knew best – the education system. 

We interviewed Ilsa on the motivations for this walkout and discussed the issues that face young women as a result of them.

Q: What initially caused you to organise the walkout protest?

A: I think… The thing that made me really want to do something was the response to the vigil by the police.  Everything kept on happening in the news and nothing was really changing. I knew that maybe I couldn’t do something on a national level, I couldn’t do a vigil like they’d done in London, but I could do something small with our school, and that might have a small impact on some of the students. 

I was talking to my friend and she was just as riled up as I was – we really wanted to do something. Then, I realised that every other girl I knew also wanted to do something about it. The next day we were at school we did a small survey, just a few questions like, “Have you ever been harassed?”, “Have you ever been groped?” and the results were just overwhelmingly “Yes”, for every single question. It angered me into doing something even more.

Q: How did these events affect you on a personal level?

A: Overall, I was just shocked by the fact that this could happen to me or any of my friends. It’s not a wild thing that only happens to a person once a year, it happens every single day and it’s very easy for it to be someone I know. It hasn’t happened to me before, but I do know people very close to me who have been sexually assaulted and something needs to be done to fix it, or this issue will always stay very close to home. 

Q: What was the school’s response?

A: I was actually quite shocked by the school’s response to what had happened. I was expecting them to brush it under the carpet and maybe do an assembly and then move on, but quite a lot of the teachers at the site we were at that day did attend the walk out and did listen to the speech that I made. Afterwards, I had quite a lot of conversations with staff that I’d never even met before about what they could do to make the school a safer place for the female students, and how we could be more comfortable. 

Since we’ve left now, I’m not sure what has been put in place after we left, and what would be put in place this time next year, but I’m confident that something will be done about it and I think that’s a testament to how good the school I went to is. 

Q: What would you like to say to the students who didn’t attend the protest?

A: I’m not too surprised that some people didn’t attend the protest. It wasn’t mandatory, but I still think it was an important cause and I wish they had come. If they had come, I probably would have told them just to listen to other people, because it is a problem. By not coming to the protest you’re only proving to me that it is a problem, because you don’t really want to listen to women’s voices about something that is close to our hearts.

Because it was during the pandemic, there were only a certain number of people I could speak to and so it would have been nice if they had attended so that there were more people who could hear this message, I guess. 

Q: Has anything changed since Sarah Everard’s death?

A: I think within the school things are changing and have changed and will continue to change after we’ve left hopefully, but I think I would be lying if I said that things have changed in the wider world. People are still getting murdered and raped just for being born women and maybe it’s pessimistic of me, but I’m not sure that’s going to change anytime soon. I’m glad that more awareness has been brought to the situation women face, but it’s been 3 months now and people aren’t talking about it anymore. Causes come and go and I think this one might have gone.

I think the problem is less about awareness, because we’re already aware, and instead we must create real change. I think the government needs to make big changes about how they deal with people who commit these crimes, as quite a lot of the time they don’t spend a lot of time in prison and then they get out and commit crimes again. They haven’t been deterred from doing those crimes, or rehabilitated in any way, they’ve just been stopped for a few years. Change needs to be made not only to the criminal justice system, to prevent these crimes becoming repeat offences, but more youth education has to be put in place too, to prevent these attitudes from being developed in the first place, and these crimes from ever being committed. 

Q: How did you feel about the police response to the vigil?

A: The police response to the Sarah Everard vigil was horrific, but I’m not sure if I was surprised. Even in a pandemic, people have the right to protest and the police’s attempt to make this into a violent encounter was disgusting. I think public confidence in the police only diminished because of this, as it felt like women and the general public weren’t being listened to by the government and the police. They were being prevented from enacting their right to protest.

Q: What did you think about the Wayne Couzen’s verdict? 

A: I’m glad that he is going to spend time somewhere where he can’t hurt anyone else. I’m not necessarily happy about the verdict, because him being guilty doesn’t bring Sarah back for her family, or anyone who loved her or even for herself. She is not alive again just because he’s pleaded guilty, but at least there’s some solace in that hopefully he won’t be out anytime soon.

Young women shouldn’t have to spend their lives fighting against injustice or fearing for their safety. As a society we should be constantly striving to prevent events like this from occurring again, to make a safer environment for everyone. It shouldn’t have to take a murder for us to care about women’s issues, institutional change needs to be brought about to educate and increase awareness on the extent of these problems. Young people’s voices are important in speaking out against injustice, and will be ever present in the growth and change of the world we live in.