Stopcocks, the organisation of women plumbers, is seeking industry support to help set up a National Register of Tradeswomen.

The organisation says that the disturbing and emerging situations of vulnerable women that have been reported in the news makes it more important now than ever that a not-for-profit National Register of Tradeswomen is set up.

Stopcocks has received pro-bono support from Addleshaw Goddard LLP, which is drawing up the legal paperwork and helping Stopcocks set up the CIC (Community Interest Company). However, the organisation still needs funding to build to technology for the register.

It is asking for £15,000 in donations to create the register, and is reaching out to potential sponsors.

The organisation asks that you email mica@stopcocks.uk if you want to be a sponsor, or to pass on ideas of where they might be able to access funds for the service.

Speaking about the need for a register of tradeswomen, Karen Ingala Smith, Chief Executive of Nia and the Femicide Census, said: “It’s well known but often ignored that home is not a place of safety for many women and children and that the most serious threat of danger usually comes from her partner. It is much less well known that some men in trusted trades roles have used their position as a way to access women and harm them including robbery, sexual violence and in some extreme though fortunately rare cases, as we have seen from our work on the Femicide Census, murder.

"Every woman deserves to feel safe in her home. For many that might mean not allowing men, especially those that are not known to us, into our homes. A register of tradeswomen would not only help keep women safe, because men are statistically much more likely to commit violence; it would also help women feel safe and less vulnerable by reducing the occasions we have open our doors to men that we don’t know and allow them access into our homes.”