Local women's charity partners with Plymouth Argyle to say ENOUGH to Violence Against Women and Girls
Trevi is excited to take its award-winning ENOUGH campaign to Plymouth Argyle’s Home Park, for a very special match dedicated to the charity and their campaign to combat Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).
Inviting ‘Her Game Too’ and ‘M.A.N Culture’ to join them in taking part in representing the city’s VAWG movement, Trevi continues to raise awareness across Plymouth in the run up to the International 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, which takes place between 25 November
Plymouth Argyle will host a dedicated women's match will take place on Wednesday 9 October between Argyle Women and Exeter City Women as part of the FA Women’s National League.
‘We’re delighted to be partnering with Plymouth Argyle for this dedicated match. By championing the ENOUGH campaign in collaboration with Plymouth Argyle, Her Game Too and M.A.N Culture, it reinforces the message that intimidation, harassment and sexist abuse whether directed at female supporters or players is not acceptable,” said Hannah Shead, Trevi’s Chief Executive Officer adding, ‘As a charity supporting women we see the devastating effect of violence against women and girls and we will continue to campaign against it in all it’s forms.’
According to BBC research in 2021, four out of five women who regularly attend football matches in the UK said they had witnessed sexist abuse at games, and one in three reported being a victim of it themselves.
Kick It Out, a UK-based organisation focused on tackling discrimination in football, reported that social media abuse towards female footballers has significantly increased. For example, in 2021, England international footballer Karen Carney received a barrage of sexist and abusive comments online after expressing her opinion on a match.
A study by The Alan Turing Institute in 2022 analysed over 2.3 million tweets during the Women’s Euro 2022 tournament and found that over 87% of abusive tweets were directed towards female footballers. A significant portion of the abuse was sexist and misogynistic.
‘We are very pleased to be partnering with Trevi for this fixture,’ said Head of Women’s Football Operations at Argyle, Joanne Moseley. ‘The football club supported Trevi’s campaign of awareness of domestic violence during the men’s European Championships in the summer, and we are pleased to once again stand beside them as they continue to support women and girls affected by it.
‘As a South West organisation, Trevi have done excellent work, and we are proud to help support what they do. We strive to make Home Park a safe space for all, and Argyle as a football club has a zero-tolerance policy towards discrimination in all its forms.’.
M.A.N Culture’s Benjamin Dunks commented, ‘We are very proud to be partnering with Plymouth Argyle and Trevi to champion the ENOUGH campaign across both the Women's and Men's games. A campaign like this is a major step forward in changing our culture around the acceptability of male violence against women and girls.'
The dedicated match follows a city-wide campaign led by Trevi to highlight the issue of Violence Against Women and Girls coinciding with the EUROS. The charity’s Show Violence Against Women and Girls the Red Card campaign called out key statistics around reports of domestic violence, including, when the England national team win or draw, reports of domestic violence rise by 26%. A loss can see this figure spike to 38%. Regardless of the match outcome, reports of domestic violence remain 11% higher than average in the day following a match.
Football unites us; violence divides us. It’s time to show violence against women and girls the red card.
For more details and information about Trevi and their ‘ENOUGH’ campaign please visit www.trevi.org.uk
