Accent of Women

On the morning of 24 April 2013, over 1100 workers at Rana Plaza died when the building they worked in collapsed. The day before the building collapse, workers complained of clear cracks in the walls and refused to go to work because they feared for their safety. Every other business in Rana Plaza stopped work because of safety issues – these included banks and other retail outlets. But the 8000 garment workers were forced to go to work.

On today’s show we look at the struggle against capitalist authoritarianism and imperialism, and the state of the women’s struggle in Turkey.My guest on today’s program is Ecehan Balta. Ecehan is a member of Baslangic Collective, which was founded after the Gezi uprising in 2013. She is also a member of Socialist Alternative, a Turkish section of International Socialist Alternative.

On today’s show we look at the struggle against capitalist authoritarianism and imperialism, and the state of the women’s struggle in Russia. My guest on today’s program is Anna Nizhnik. Anna is a socialist feminist, publisher, activist. Specializes in Literary Gender Studies and Women’s History.

Today's show is about about developments within the feminist movement in Algeria. The facilitator is Fatemeh Masjedi, an Iranian academic historian and activist based in Berlin. She is a former political prisoner in Iran because of her women’s rights activities.  And the person being interviewed is Selma Oumari. She’s an Algerian French member  of the New Anticapitalist in France.  She is  involved in antiracist struggles as well as international solidarity.

The situation in India is slowly developing into a state engineered pogrom against muslim people. This has been developing since the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Bill – now law – tying people’s citizenship to India, to their religion.Workers, students and other parts of civil society have been protesting since November last year in an effort to defeat the legislation. However, some of these protests have been contested by fascist forces and thugs, and in the last week we have seen mosques being burnt down, and heightened communal violence resulting in deaths.

International Women’s Day is just around the corner and to mark this important date we hear from past and present campaigners fighting for gender and racial equality.GuestsCamaigners Natasha and Aakansha from the anti-street harassment campaign -- it's not a compliment.Adjunct Professor and Historian, Dr Victoria Grieve - Williams.To learn more about the life of Roberta 'Bobbi' Sykes check out her three volume autobigraphy Snake Dreaming.

The economy in France has been crippled by a strike wave that has been ongoing since December 2019.  Initially in response to pension reforms by the Macron Government, the strike wave has affected broad sectors of the economy including postal services, airlines, manufacturing,  schools, hospitals just to name a few.  It’s even included the arts – with actors, writers and other artists participating in the strikes.But are those pensions really the reason for the mass activity on the streets and this level of industrial action, or is there an underlying economic desperation, for which these pensions were just a catalyst?

February 6th is the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation. To learn more about the practice I spoke to health professional Medina Idriess from the Family & Reproductive Rights Education Program.  In the second half of the show, Monica Majak and Adongwot Manyoul from the South Sudanese Mother's Coalition of Victoria discuss the challenges of resettlement.

Donald Trump joined with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in the final weeks of January to publicly unveil what the US president described as his “vision for peace” in the Middle East. It was a farcical proposal, endorsing all of the policies of the Israeli right while guaranteeing rejection by the Palestinian people. To discuss these developments in the struggle for a Free Palestine, I am joined by Palestinian socialist, Reem.

This week we speak to writer and cultural producer Alia Gabres about her gorgeous children’s book, Haboba’s House.Haboba’s House tells the story of Iman - a young Eritrean girl staying at her Haboba’s (grandmother) House during the school holidays. It's the first book in Iman’s Really Really Big World! series.In this interview, Alia discusses the inspiration for Haboba’s House and explains why children of colour deserve to see themselves represented in books.To learn more about this exciting series, go to imansworld.com.Song To Be Young, Gifted and BlackArtist Nina Simone Produced by Ayan Shirwa