Women on the Line

Sarah Jefford OAM is a family creation lawyer, who helps families across Australia with surrogacy, donor conception and co-parenting arrangements. Sarah is an IVF mum, an egg donor and a surrogate, and has written the only guide to surrogacy in Australia. Sarah joins us on this episode of Women on the Line to discuss her surrogacy experience, what exploitation of surrogates can look like and putti...

In July 2026, we joined the many people travelling to Mparntwe/Alice Springs (Arrernte Country) for the Close Pine Gap Convergence. In this episode, we play excerpts from anti-war and anti-nuclear campaigners and women who first protested at the base's gates more than forty years ago, at the 1983 Women's Peace Camp. Among them were Aunty Oongi Barb Flick, Lee Rhiannon, and Michelle. We then play a...

For this week’s episode of Women on the Line, we speak to Sunday, Chairperson of Anakbayan Melbourne and member of Migrante Australia about the exploitation of Filipino migrant workers in so-called Australia. In response to workers’ testimonies of wage theft, unpaid mandatory superannuation, coercion, and unsafe conditions in the workplace, Migrante Australia has launched a new campaign called “La...

For this week’s episode we look at Artificial Intelligence in two domains. Firstly, we hear from Associate Professor of Social Work at ACU, Jessica Russ-Smith, a sovereign Wiradyuri Wambuul woman, from the Smith and McGuinness Wiradyuri matriarchy. Jess’ work focuses on the embodiment of First Nations sovereignty and critical anti-colonial practice. She also co-authored the groundbreaking 2024 boo...

The first episode of Women on the Line was broadcast on July 16, 1986.This week on the program we mark 40 years of Women on the Line with an interview with WOTL’s first producer, Deb Welch. We’ll also hear some archival excerpts from the first episode of the show.

In this episode, we interview Laleh Khalili, a professor of Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter and the author of Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula, to discuss the longer lineages of imperialism and capitalism currently exemplified through the escalation of US war against Iran and what role the Gulf states play. This is a two-part series. Part II examin...

Professor Prabha Kotiswaran is a Professor of Law and Social Justice. Her main areas of research include criminal law, transnational criminal law, feminist legal studies and sociology of law. She has edited and co-authored a number of influential books on sex work, trafficking, feminism and the law, and is a leading voice on gender, labour and social justice. On this episode of women on the line,...

On this episode of Women on the Line, we hear from Emily Stephenson, an educator and social-emotional learning specialist based in Thailand working at the intersection of education and mental health. Emily talks to us about creating safe, inclusive spaces for students, challenging systems that prioritise compliance and conformity at the expense of belonging and student wellbeing, her experience wo...

This week on the program we hear from four women from Kanaky, so-called New Caledonia, who were recently in so-called Australia for a speaking tour, organised by Free Kanaky Solidarity Naarm. Fara Caillard, Sonia Togna, Doriane Nonmoira, and Marie-Claire Kaïchou reflect on the Indigenous feminist movement in Kanaky, the simultaneous fight for independence and women’s rights, the ongoing impacts of...

Thinzar Shunlei Yi is an award winning Myanmar Democracy Activist, well-known for her public advocacy against Military supremacism and oppressive systems for ethnic and religious minorities. Shunlei is the director of Sisters 2 Sisters (S2S), a women’s rights and feminist resistance collective in Myanmar that promotes global solidarity, supports frontline fighters, and mentors young female activis...

For this week’s episode of Women on the Line we go back into the archives, and revisit the historic 50-day Victorian nurses’ and midwives’ strike in 1986. As 3CR Community radio celebrates its 50th anniversary and this program, Women on the Line, celebrates its 40th anniversary, we are dedicating this special May Day edition of the show to the nurses’ strike and the rolling coverage that took plac...

This week, we take you to the National Folk Festival in Canberra, where we chat with three women from Dabke & Tatreez, a music and dance ensemble. Dabke & Tatreez formed in Sydney (Gadigal land) with musicians and dancers from, and with roots, in Palestine, Lebanon, Turkiye, Cyprus and Indonesia. We spoke with Ayse Shanal (Artists for Peace) and Hala & Hoor al-Sammak (Three Rivers Ensemble and Dah...

This week on the program we hear excerpts from “Capitalism is Femicidal: Women resisters speak out” held by Radical Women at Thorne Harbour Health in narrm Melbourne on Sunday 15 March to honour International Women’s Day. We’ll hear parts of speeches by:Natalie Feliks, co-founder of Trans Action NetworkKelly Flanagan, Wiradjuri woman, survivor of family violence, intergenerational trauma and membe...

On this week’s program we look into Australia's new online safety codes requiring age verification for R-rated games and websites and the ramifications that this will have on our privacy. These new requirements, aimed to prevent children from being exposed to age-inappropriate content, raise questions about whether this will actually stop young people from accessing this content, as well as concer...

In this episode of Women on the Line, we hear from Dr Anubha Sarkar, Lecturer of Global Creative Industries at City St George’s, University of London and Deputy Programme Director for the Bachelor of Arts in Media and Communication, about Bollywood’s soft power and the rise of right wing Hindu ideologies, rising anti-Muslim sentiments and nationalism in India. You can also listen to Kannagi's firs...

In this second part of our conversation on critical minerals with researcher and activist Mercedes Zanker (Renegade Activists), we examine the global supply chains that shape how these resources are controlled, processed, and distributed. As Australia and the rest of the Anglosphere amp up their focus on usurping China's monopoly over the critical minerals supply chain, we explore the logic of nat...

Maya Linstrum-Newman, Programme Lead for Human Trafficking and Forced Labour at the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), on a recent alliance between radical feminists and religious groups to restrict reproductive freedoms and its impact on sex work, surrogacy, gender ideology and bodily autonomy. 

This week on the program we are looking at energy democracy in action - specially Cooperative Power, a not-for-profit cooperative which is member owned and member run. Recently, CoPower’s energy partner Energy Locals was bought out by major retailer Origin Energy. We speak with Claire Harvey, Cooperative Power Board member, about what CoPower does, why their model is different, and what CoPower’s...

In this special live-recorded episode of Women on the Line, we broadcast from the streets of Naarm/Melbourne during the mass protest against the visit of Israeli president Isaac Herzog. This episode captures the voices of protesters, organisers, and community members who situate Herzog’s visit within the ongoing genocide in Gaza and Australia’s complicity through diplomatic, military, economic and...

On this episode of Women on the Line, we first hear from Gemma Cafarella, barrister and president of Liberty Victoria, about new research exposing the discriminatory and ineffective use of Victoria Police’s ‘designated area’ powers - a regime that allows police to stop and search people without reasonable grounds or a warrant. We then hear an excerpt from 3CR Thursday Breakfast’s Priya speaking wi...

On this week's episode we speak to Titaua Porcher, Associate Professor in French and Francophone Pacific literatures at the University of French Polynesia, about how writers, poets and playwrights in Te Ao Maohi/French Polynesia have grappled with the impacts of France's nuclear weapons testing in the region through literature. As a playwright herself, Titaua also discusses the important role of l...

In this episode, we sit with researcher Mercedes Zanker to discuss the military supply chain of critical minerals, from the colonisation and expropriation of sovereign Aboriginal lands to raining bombs on people implicated in US terror wars. Mercedes has extensively written and researched military supply chains as part of her work for Renegade Activists and her show on 3CR, A Friday Night Rave. 

On this episode of Women on the Line we listen to snippets from a panel discussion about the new research released by the Racial Profiling Data Monitoring Project. We hear from:Dr Tamar Hopkins, a Researcher on Racial ProfilingSabrina Adem, a Community organiserLauren Caufield, Advocacy coordinator at Beyond Survival, Flat OutBee Charika, Rising Red Lantern and VixenDr Tasnim Sammak, Palestinian a...

On this episode of Women on the Line, we’re honoring the late disabled writer and activist, Alice Wong, who passed away on the 14 November 2025 at the age of 51. We’re listening to her presentation titled ‘The Last Disabled Oracle’ from 2020, where she speaks from the future of 2029. The presentation was delivered as part of Alex Kelly’s Assembly for the Future. You can listen to the full presenta...

On this episode of Women on the Line we speak with Sharvari, a theatre historian from India currently teaching at University of Chicago, about her first book project, Performances of Posterity: Theater, Archives and Cultural Regulation in Modern India. Sharvari talks to us about her research, the historical erasure of caste and gender in theatre, the impermanence of researching performance, the li...