Some brave individuals and movements challenging profound inequalities have caught the attention of mainstream or leftist media and feminists, and therefore have been written about in English. Some accounts are very brief. New Internationalist has published several short accounts of women activists: for example: Mathews, Dylan , Interview with The Rescue Foundation: Liberating Sex Slaves in India New Internationalist, 2006, pp. 33-33 ; New Internationalist, Durga Sob: Nepal’s trailblazing Dalit feminist New Internationalist, 2010, pp. 33-32 ; ‘Making Waves: Interview with Rosi Orozco.on the Fight against Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation in Mexico’ by President of the Special Commission in the Combat of Sexual Trafficking (November 2011, p. 56 - not online); ‘Interview with Khanim Latif’, Iraqi feminist campaigner and director of Kurdistan-based women’s rights organization Asuda (December 2012, p. 42 - not online) A few book length studies are listed below.
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F.3.b. Individual Campaigns and Activists
Account of feminist organization founded in 1977, which uses literacy classes, underground papers and pamphlets and demonstrations, based on more than 100 interviews with key activists by author, a US feminist scholar. The founder of the Association, who left university in Kabul to struggle for women’s rights, was assassinated in 1987.
Describes Sampat Pal and the now 20,000 strong Pink Gang she founded, which uses ‘social power’ to defend individual women treated unjustly and to challenge misogyny in general, The women carry sticks and sometimes attack corrupt politicians and policemen. See also: Pal, Sampan ; Berthod, Anne , Warrior in a Pink Sari New Delhi, Zubaan Books, , 2012, pp. 220
Explores life of young woman who secretly ran schools for girls in Herat during Taliban rule, was elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005 at the age of 23, but was thrown out of it for raising women’s issues, and who had by 2009 already survived five assassination attempts. When she visited Britain in 2009, where she opposed NATO involvement in Afghanistan, the Independent ran a long interview with her: Hari, Johann , Malalai Joya: The woman who will not be silenced The Independent, 28/07/2009, pp. 1-5 .
Memoir by a Cambodian activist against sexual slavery, whose organizations have tried to rescue, shelter and teach girls and women escaping from sexual exploitation in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and more generally. She received high level international support, but the credibility of her claims to have been sent to a brothel as a child, and of her most lurid examples of abuse in the sex industry, was challenged in a Newsweek report, 21 May 2014. An interview and report in Marie Claire 16 September 2014 in turn queried some of the allegations and interpretations of the Newsweek story. Mam is still involved in campaigning and fund raising, but controversy continues about her role, management of her campaigns, and the extent of exploitation in the sex industry.
The schoolgirl Pakistani campaigner for girls’ education who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 tells her story.
The online version of Vol. 1 of the bibliography was made possible due to the generous support of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). ICNC is an independent, non-profit educational foundation that develops and encourages the study and use of civilian-based, nonmilitary strategies aimed at establishing and defending human rights, democratic self-rule and justice worldwide.
For more information about ICNC, please see their website.
The online version of Vol. 2 of the bibliography was made possible due to the generous support of The Network for Social Change. The Network for Social Change is a group of individuals providing funding for progressive social change, particularly in the areas of justice, peace and the environment.
For more information about The Network for Social Change, please visit their website.
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