Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 29, 2017

Josephine Butler (1828–1906) was an English feminist and social reformer in the Victorian era. She campaigned for women's suffrage and better education for women. She was instrumental in the 1886 repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, which had subjected prostitutes to invasive medical examinations, and she founded an organisation to combat similar practices across Europe. After she became aware that English women and children were being sold into prostitution on the continent, her allegations led to the sacking of a Belgian police commissionaire and the imprisonment of his deputy and 12 brothel owners. Josephine fought child prostitution with help from the campaigning editor of The Pall Mall Gazette, William Thomas Stead, leading to the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which raised the age of consent from 13 to 16 years of age. Her final campaign came in the late 1890s, against medical mistreatment of prostitutes in the British Raj. She wrote more than 90 books and pamphlets, including three biographies. Her Christian feminism is celebrated by the Church of England with a Lesser Festival, and Durham University named one of their colleges after her.