FiLiA

HOUZAN MAHMOUD  is feminist activist, public lecturer and co-founder of Culture Project,  a project formed to raise awareness about feminism and gender in Kurdistan and diaspora.  She is also editorial board member of Culture Magazine, a quarterly publication published in Kurdistan/Iraq. She has an MA in Gender Studies from SOAS, London University. She was born in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1973 and currently resides and works in London. 

She is the winner of 2016 Emma Humphrey’s Memorial Award and One Law for All’s Secularism Award for 2018 for her tireless work in defense of women’s rights and secularisation of Kurdish society.

Houzan is scheduled to speak at the FiLiA conference in 2019 on Kurdish Women’s Experiences and Political Alternatives. For this podcast, she is joined in conversation with Heather Brunskell-Evans.

Vandana Aparanti is an anti-caste activist and expert in the field of oppressed caste women’s rights. She is co-founder and the Chair of STOP gender based caste oppression, one of the only women’s organisation raising awareness about caste discrimination in India and the UK. Vandana has been into active campaigning to bring caste legislation into British law, participating in protests and events around the issue. Vandana has spoken at a number of events about human rights violations on oppressed caste women.

Vandana holds a Masters in Sociology and is currently working as a Domestic Violence Officer in a well-known BME charity in London.

Ms. Lahl is founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Lahl couples her 25 years of experience as a pediatric critical care nurse, a hospital administrator, and a senior-level nursing manager with a deep passion to speak for those who have no voice. Lahl’s writings have appeared in various publications including Cambridge University Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, and the American Journal of Bioethics. 

Lahl made her writing and directing debut producing the documentary film Eggsploitation. Her other films include  Breeders: A Subclass of Women?, which focuses on surrogacy, Maggie’s Story, which follows one woman’s egg donation journey. Lahl’s latest feature film is #BigFertility .

Jennifer Lahl will be at the FiLiA Conference in 2019 on the panel about surrogacy. Heather Brunskell-Evans joins her in conversation for this podcast.

Links:

International Campaign to StopSurrogacyNow

Follow Jennifer Lahl on Twitter

Read the book Broken Bonds: Surrogate Mothers Speak Out

Fiona Broadfoot is a sex trade survivor, having been trafficked into prostitution at the age of 15. Fiona spent 11 years entrenched in the violent world of prostitution. she has since worked to raise awareness of the harm it causes to young people and their families. She was a close friend and fellow campaigner of Irene Ivison, the founder of PACE (formerly known as CROP), and was instrumental in the setting up of CROP in 1996, alongside her own organisation, EXIT, which was formed offer support to women exiting prostitution. Fiona travelled the country with Irene, campaigning, speaking about her own experiences, at conferences and on television, challenging the public and professional perception that young people involved in CSE were ‘prostitutes,’ who had chosen that ‘lifestyle’. Irene sadly, died in 2000, but Fiona had the strength and commitment to carry on the fight, alone. This was at a time when CSE was not recognised as a child abuse issue, but Fiona did not let this deter her.

She went on to become involved in training professionals and working with young people at risk of, or being, sexually exploited. She could speak directly to young people, using the credibility given to her by her own personal experience.  

Fiona has also continued to campaign on the issue of violence against women and girls. She has spoken at many national and international conferences, impressively for the last 3 years at the United Nations in New York and has advised government policy in both Ireland and Scotland. She is a fierce proponent of the Nordic model and is a member of SPACE International (Survivors of Prostitution Abuse Calling for Enlightenment). She is an inspirational communicator, who can change attitudes through the power and passion of her public speaking. She is also selfless in telling her own story, sometimes at much personal cost, to demonstrate the reality of being a victim and survivor of prostitution abuse. She can communicate effortlessly and effectively with victims, survivors, professionals and those in power. She has spent her life combatting sexual abuse and violence.

Fiona recently achieved a place on the highly competitive Lloyds School for Social Entrepreneurs and has now started her own social enterprise called the ‘Build a Girl Project’. The Project is firmly based on a survivor led perspective and is deeply committed to supporting and empowering victims and survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse and challenging the normalisation of sexism and misogyny that girls and young women are often faced with and constrained by.

For the FiLiA conference in 2019, Fiona will be opening the event, leading the March Against the Sex Trade and chairing a panel on the sex trade.

Support Build A Girl HERE

BUILD A GIRL TWITTER

FIONA BROADFOOT TWITTER

BUILD A GIRL FACEBOOK

An award-winning freelance journalist, Louise specialises in education and social affairs. She has written extensively on domestic abuse, the effects of poverty on children’s education and child protection.

She has a particular interest in family courts and the care system, and is a member of The Transparency Project which aims to promote greater understanding of family law. 

 In 2017, Louise was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain's Social Evils for her work on the BBC One film Behind Closed Doors and her Guardian reporting on domestic abuse. In 2016 she was also shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Journalism, and was a joint winner of the Bar Council’s Legal Reporting Award. She has won a number of CIPR Awards for outstanding education journalism, and has twice been the winner of the Rosemary Goodchild Award for Sexual Health Journalism run by Brook and the Family Planning Association.

She is joined by FiLiA’s Sally Jackson for a discussion on this podcast and will be speaking at the FiLiA Conference in 2019.

Louise’s Website

Sammy Woodhouse describes her story like this: 

“I am an author, public speaker, campaigner, fundraiser, consultant & assisting in training throughout the UK. My greatest achievement, I am a mum to 2 beautiful boys. I am also a young woman rebuilding my life after I was groomed and abused mentally, physically and sexually as a child and throughout my adult life.

In July 2013, I contacted Andrew Norfolk at The Times newspaper and handed over evidence that proved I was abused and failed by authorities. My story was published, naming the man that abused me, Hussain and the deputy leader of Rotherham council in August 2013. This triggered the Alexis Jay report, which exposed 1,400 children being abused and failed in Rotherham. A police investigation (Operation Clover & Operation Stovewood) was also launched into my abuse and into all non-recent child abuse cases in South Yorkshire making it the biggest investigation in the UK.

In February 2016, after testifying in court, Hussain was found guilty and sentenced to 35 years in prison alongside 5 others, for a total of 102 years. Four trials in total under Operation Clover & Thunder, 21 survivors, 20 criminals and a total sentencing of 290 years 6 months.

As an award winning campaigner, I have campaigned for improvements around counselling services, better national funding, mandatory education, licensing policies and Sammy’s Law.

As a campaigner I am trying to bring awareness and make changes at a national level.”

Sammy Woodhouse Website  

Twitter & Facebook

Read Sammy’s book - Just a Child: Britain’s Biggest Child Abuse Scandal Exposed