Women still waiting for pensions justice

WHY are we waiting? A question on the lips of every woman born in the 1950s after years of campaigning for justice.

Like many of my fellow campaigners e I have served my sentence and after wishing away six long years at a time in my life when I should have been cherishing them, I received my long-awaited pension in May.

I have walked the streets of many cities c in the UK with dedicated women determined to let the public and the Government know that we are not going away. Not going away until u they admit that mistakes were made and they are wrong to brush our issue under the carpet and refuse to compensate the women so badly affected a by their errors.

No formal notice was given to us. We were expected to accept that six years was a fair increase in age at a time in our lives when we had prepared financially, mentally and physically to retire at 60.

Equality is not the issue here. Saving money was the only reason for the change to SPA.

Had the option of changing retirement age for both men and women to 63 been chosen, the lives of so many women would have been far more bearable. Instead we have seen women forced to sell their homes, move to the streets, and some even take their own lives because they simply could not cope.

We now await the long drawn out proceedings of the parliamentary ombudsman after lengthy delays blamed on court proceedings taken out by fellow campaigners before justice is finally served to the women of the 1950s.

And even when this finally happens, the amount of £500-£900 has been suggested as a fair compensatory offer. Yet 3.8 million women have had £50,000 taken from their pension pots.

Meanwhile more of us are dying, adding to the figure of well over 100,000. Women who had hoped that our pleas for a fair outcome to this debacle would be heard and we would be treated with the dignity and respect that we deserve after a lifetime of inequality.

I would like to dispel some of the myths put about by this government. We are not waiting just 18 months for our pensions; we are waiting six years. We are not fighting for equality; we are fighting for a fair transitional system which we have not been afforded. We are not living longer; life expectancy is fluid and has in fact gone down. We are not robbing the younger generation; we were that younger generation when we paid in what we should now be receiving. Kay Clarke,

Founder member 1950s WOW (Women of Wales)