FiLiA

"The naming of non-State torture is crucial for women's healing" At FiLiA2025 , Linda MacDonald, Mariane da Cunha, Elizabeth Gordon and Jeanne Sarson presented a panel on non-State Torture. An idea that emerged from this panel was the creation of a Network Against Non-State Torture (NNST), with its official launch on February 3 and a global conference planned in Lisbon in November....

'I asked her: do you hate men? She said: ’This thing about hating men is really more about standing up to male dominance WITHOUT apology. Meet Andrea Dworkin! In this episode, Roberta Pyzel discusses her documentary DWORKIN: a close-up portrait of the brilliant, compassionate, and courageous feminist icon. Dworkin’s lifelong commitment to elevating the voices of women who suffer under the bru...

'It's important to say that even today we know that children are in the court systems and their voices are not being heard in a way that is respected. If you can't name something, you can't heal from it.' In this episode Sally Jackson from FiLiA talks to Jeanne Sarson, Co founder Non-State Torture and Linda McDonald Co founder of Non-State Torture . Linda and Jeanne have p...

 "What it has meant to me is that I haven't seen my children for over 10 years."  In this episode, Anita Gera explains the work of Hague Explained , a registered non-profit organisation that provides customised workshops to help internationally mobile families understand the legal and emotional risks of relocating children across borders.  Anita also shares the deeply personal traum...

“I don't ever want to make the mothers have to be the ones to gatekeep for who comes in. I'm going to do that for them.” La Leche League is a charity that was set up to offer mother-to-mother breastfeeding support and to protect the natural course of breastfeeding and the mother-baby dyad. Ruth, Rej, and Loreto all had their accreditation as LLL breastfeeding counsellors removed by LLL I...

 We are increasingly hearing about cases of strangulation of women, both in relationships and, thanks to porn culture, increasingly in our sex lives. In this episode, Sally Jackson, FiLiA Trustee; Bernie Ryan, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation (IFAS); and Marianne McGowan, Survivor Liaison and Research Worker for IFAS, discuss the dangers, who it affects,...

 "I don't feel that loneliness anymore. I feel part of something." After attending FiLiA in Portsmouth, one woman returned to her workplace determined to set up a women’s group. Two years later, the group has grown in size and confidence. In this interview, Kiri Tunks discusses with the women how they set up the group, what they do in their meetings, and how it has transformed their...

Does prison work for Women? What alternatives are being tried and how successful are they - what do we even mean by 'success'? "The short answer to How many Women are in prison, is far too many! The biggest challenges are funding and investment" In this episode FiLiA trustee Sally Jackson, Dr April Smith, a criminologist and psychologist, and Rhona Hotchkiss, ex-governor of Cor...

FiLiA is a member of Women Against Violence Europe (WAVE) In this podcast we find out more about WAVE's work. Sally Jackson interviews, Stephanie Futter Orel Executive Director WAVE, Branislava Aradjan Project and Youth ambassador Coordinator and Beverly Mtui, Communications Coordinator of WAVE WAVE is a network of over 170 European women’s NGOs working towards prevention and protection of wo...

In this episode Luba Fein, FiLiA volunteer, Alyssa Ahrabare, Advocacy Manager for European Network of Migrant Women and Hema Sibi, advocacy coordinator for The Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution discuss a huge legal victory in France. The European Court of Human Rights upholds France's right to ban the purchase of prostitution. France enforces a law that aims to abolish prostitution,...

"It is not our job to question individual choices of women in prostitution. We must examine the system and the context in which women's choices take place" Anna Zobnina In February 2024, Dunja Mijatović, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, published a statement entitled "Protecting the human rights of sex workers". It was a problematic statement tha...

Tragically Chloe felt her only escape from the coercive and controlling behaviour she was subjected to was to end her own life. Her Mum Sharon wants the perpetrator held to account for her death and so is campaigning for a change in the law so that he could be charged with manslaughter by coercive or controlling behaviour. Hear about how they have developed their grassroot campaign and how you can...

" I just hope that in capturing these stories that we've done something to archive working class, women's experience and that it'll be there if people wanna watch it or read it. We've done our bit and we can use the methods to look at any issue we want " - Paula Boulton This podcast is about working class women and the theatre women make. It is  a discussion between p...

Raquel Rosario Sanchez and Sarah Ditum discuss the tropes and stereotypes about women in the public eye and how they reflect on the wider struggles women face in society. Ditum's clever analysis dissects how patriarchy operates to ensure that women, including those who are extremely privileged, are used as examples to venerate and later on to destroy in order to appease a misogynist system. B...

This interview took place on January 25th 2024 and permission was given to share this week. "We don't want to live in this violence, in this conflict anymore. We want to end it. And as Yael always said, we shouldn't, you know, keep managing the conflict. We should resolve it. And this is why we are raising our voice and we want the international support for this [and we are raising]...

In this episode, Margaret Owen OBE founder of Widows for Peace ( WPD) highlights the plight of the world’s dark secret of marginalised ‘invisible’ widows: a vast and growing number of women of all ages living in extreme poverty, forgotten, abused and neglected internationally, nationally at grassroots levels. Featuring: Lily Thapa, Founder of WHR/SWg (women for human rights single women's gro...

"It's not rocket science... you investigate the suspect, not the victim," – Harriet Wistrich . In this episode, Suzy Angus and Emma Bryson , survivors of sexual violence and founders of Speak Out Survivors , meet Dr Oona Brooks-Hay (Reader in Criminology at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research at the University of Glasgow) and Harriet Wistrich ( Director of the Centre...

"One of the things I love about the feminist movement is that we're each other's catalysts. We are always pushing each other to go for our dreams and to maybe try that project that we're thinking of, make it a reality somehow." Dr Bec Wonders reports from FiLiA 2023 in Glasgow, Scotland. Listen to interviews with an array of attendees and participants at the largest grassr...

Hadley Freeman On Life Beyond Anorexia and Breaking Out of the Good Girl Socialisation In this episode, Hadley Freeman discusses her latest book 'Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia' with FiLiA spokeswoman  Raquel Rosario Sánchez ,  in which she shares a harrowing first-person account of her decades-long struggle with mental illness. She addresses the broader, structural issues dri...

"When they arrested me, I thought it was because I was protesting with other teachers, and students. But later, I realized that they targeted me and other women because I am a lesbian." We are paying tribute to Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes, who has passed away, by sharing her talk at FiLiA 2019 on her experiences of pain through torture and imprisonment in Dictatorial Chile. "Very little...

"Creating this women only space, we're creating a journey for women to be honouring each other, celebrating each other, and that's something that women haven't had much time with." Sally Jackson leads a discussion between Natalie Collins , creator of the Own My Life Course, Catherine Mc Quarrie from Border Women's Aid, and Danielle, survivor and facilitator, explainin...

We are delighted to interview Ivorian artist, social commentator and author Laetitia Ky on the FiLiA Podcast. She is a political artist known for her hair sculptures , which she uses to raise awareness about the structural inequality and oppression of women and girls. She is a one-of-a-kind artist, activist and creative voice based in the Ivory Coast. Laetitia taught herself how to use dreads and...

Austrian Parliamentarian Faika El-Nagashi joins FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez to discuss the intersectional nature of her multi-faceted work as a feminist politician , her defence of lesbian rights and her background as a campaigner for social justice.  Faika El-Nagashi is a long-time feminist & lesbian human rights advocate. She is a political scientist by vocation, political activ...

Lisa-Marie Taylor and Yagmur Uygarkizi interview authors Jeanne Sarson and Linda MacDonald about their best-selling book, Women Unsilenced Our Refusal To Let Torturer-Traffickers Win . This episode welcomes Jeanette Westbrook and Elizabeth Gordon, who both survived family and non-family-based non-State torture (NST) crimes, and join authors Jeanne and Linda to explain the vitalness of insisting on...

Feminist author Victoria Smith discusses her first book, ‘ Hags’ , about the demonisation of middle-aged women with FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez. Smith discusses the experiences which raised her awareness to the way middle-aged women are invisibilised and dismissed under patriarchy around the world, as well her understanding of the tropes designed to further vilify this cohort of women...