Accent of Women

Daniela Alvarado is an Ecuadorian feminist and a Public Health specialist. She is passionate about women’s reproductive rights. Daniela discusses the history of women’s struggles and campaigns in Latin America, and particularly in Ecuador, for social and economic rights, safe legal abortions and self determination. This program was first played on November 2014, and it is an interview recorded at...

Israel has once again escalated its attacks against the Palestinians, provoked by the right-wing Zionist settler movement that wants the government to take control of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque compound and allow Jewish prayers on the entire site.  It is hard to believe that a future is possible in Palestine.  In fact, many are predicting a third intifada.  And yet, as Jerusalem burns, it seems th...

Under Pinochet era Anti-Terror laws, 15 Mapuche community leaders are currently in prison because they are opposing a forestry hydrolic company taking over their lands - all with the permission of the State. Marisol Salinas is a Mapuche in exile here in Australia, and a member of the Latin American Solidarity Network, where she co-ordinates the solidarity campaign for the release of the Mapuche po...

Effie Meehan is a woman from Greek background living with cerebral palsy. For over 30 years, she has been a tireless advocate for the rights of people with disabilities, particularly from migrant backgrounds. She is a co-founder of ADEC (Action on Disability within Ethnic Communities) and she is currently a Facilitator and a Disabily Ambassador.

Today’s show is dedicated to the case of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa marking the one-year anniversary since the event in which 43 students were forcibly disapeared. On the night of September 26, 2014, six people were killed by police forces, including three students. One of them, Julio Mondragón, appeared hours later with the skin removed from his face. On that night, 43 student teachers were...

Since the election of Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, there has been a marked increase in military spending by the government.  This has led to an upsurge in anti-war actions in the last few years with massive demonstrations across Japan.  As the world prepares for increased military operations in the Middle East, Japan is eagerly running into these conflicts despite fierce opposition from th...

On today's show, we will be learning about the work of ADEC, Action on Disability in Ethnic Communities, a community based organization that aims to empower people with disabilities from ethnic backgrounds, their carers and families. To learn about this organization we spoke with of its founding members, Effie Mehan, a woman from Greek background living with Cerebral palsy. She is a tireless advoc...

African feminism is as old as society. From Kenyan women asserting their right to dress as they choose and Nigerians standing up to the misogynist Boko Haram to feminists organising across the continent for LGBTIQ rights.  The Socialist Feminist organisation, Radical Women, recently organised a public meeting on Feminism in Africa. Nita Okoko, Kenyan feminist and international student at Melbourne...

On this week's show, we speak to an unlikely activist, a muslim woman who was so overwhelmed with the grief in her community that she organised a public meeting on fighting Islamophobia.

On the show this week, we bring you a remarkable story of the victory of the Anganbadi workers in India, who after weeks of struggle, won their dispute with the government. Anganbadi is a government sponsored child-care and mother-care program which relies solely on the work of the Anganbadi workers most of which are women. The urban poor in Delhi rely heavily on these services from pre-natal care...

July 20 was a historic day in Havana, Cuba and in Washington DC in the United State. For the first time in 54 years, the Cuban embassy in Washington and the American Embassy in Havana re-opened their doors. After months of negotiations that involved even the pope Francis, and after many years of work behind scenes, this important moment took place. In recent years, there have been a number of poli...

Lorena Pizarro is human rights activist and currently the President of the Association of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Chile. She toured Australia in June this year to talk about the cases of forced dissapeared in Chile and Latin america and to highlight the importance of seeking justice for human rights abuses in Chile. She was invited by the National Campaign for Truth and Justic...

As Accent of Women goes to air, Greece is approaching its due date with the European Community and the IMF to impose severe austerity measures on its people, in order to be granted another bailout. It's looking like Greece will refuse to do this, and will await the outcome of a referendum, scheduled to take place on July 7.To look more deeply at the Greece Economic Crisis, Accent of Women is joine...

Auckland Action Against Poverty is a direct action and welfare rights advocacy group. It is an openly anti-capitalist group formed to expose and oppose the New Zealand government's agenda of welfare cuts and austerity attacks on the country’s poorest communities. We spoke with AAAP's coordinator Nadia Abu-Shanab. She is a Palestinian, a en educator and trade unionist. The talk was recorded at the...

The Australian Council of Trade Unions held its annual conference from teh 26th to teh 28th of May 2015.  A number of international guests were invited, and among them, Sineat Yon from the Cambodian Food and Service Workers' Federation.  Accent of Women had an opportunity to interview her about organising unions in Cambodia.

Revisiting Accent of women's archives we bring back an interview with Sylvia Marcos, a scholar committed with the struggles of indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. We discussed the idea of decolonising feminist, and what is the contribution of indigenous women in Zapatista communities in the South of Mexico, where indigenous people build autonomous territories and day by day challenge the o...

We discuss the situation of political prisoners in Peru over the last 20 years, particularly in the context of  the fierce anti-communism of the Fujimori regime, and the recent changes to the incarceration system. We talk about how political prisoners have used art as a therapeutic tool and a way to share their stories. Viviana Salas is a Peruvian photographer living in Melbourne and the curator o...

We speak with Emily Woo Yamasaki, an Asian-American activist and queer feminists based in New York. We talked about racist police violence and environmental racism in the USA today. Emily is a contributor to the book "Talking back, voices of color", published by Red Letter Press.

We spoke with Nellie Wong, a Chinese-American, feminist poet and socialist activist. She is the editor of the book "Talking Back, Voices of Colour", published by Red Letter Press. Talking back is an anthology featuring voices of youth, political prisoners, immigrants and history-makers. In Melbourne, the book was launched on Saturday May 2 at Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick. Here is t...