2007 Nominees
Individuals
Mende Nazer was a victim: as a child, she was abducted from her family and community in Sudan; still a child, she was a domestic slave in Khartoum and then was brought to the UK to be a slave again. When she escaped, her asylum application was refused. Mende is now a survivor and fighter. She escaped from her captors, fought a successful battle to be recognised as a refugee and is now an international leader in combating the slavery of women and children. Her book Slave has been recognised as one of the most powerful exposures of modern-day slavery and she travels the world using her own experience to inspire change.
Azar Majedi is an Iranian feminist writer, campaigner and activist. Born in Iran, Azar has spent a lifetime fighting gender inequality and dictatorial regimes in the country of her birth and beyond. In the late 1970s, she took part in demonstrations to oppose the restrictions the Islamic Republic placed upon women and played an active role in feminist academia and campaigning, writing and pamphlets championing women's rights and translating international feminist texts into Farsi. Her political activism has often placed the lives of her and her family at risk. In 1982 she was forced to flee Iran, but continued to produce political radio programmes broadcast across the country, telling women about their human rights. She sought asylum in Europe in 1984. Since that time she has created and run feminist journals, co-founded the Centre for Women and Socialism, and created and launched the organisation for Women's Liberation-Iran (OWL). She has also been working as a broadcaster to voice critique of misogynist ideology and values and to expose various aspects of women's oppression via satellite TV. These programmes have been widely received by the public in Iran.
Claire Moore is an inspirational woman, who uses her vast knowledge of domestic violence issues to write and perform outstanding, award winning plays to educate and raise awareness of domestic violence against women and children. Her plays are hard-hitting and present the ideal medium to get important messages across to truly challenge DV professionals and our communities. Claire is co-founder of the Certain Curtain Theatre Company who have been using dynamic original theatre for change since 1989, taking theatre into the heart of the community.
Safina Siddique has been committed to working with women survivors of sexual violence for many years. Her tireless contributions to campaigning against women's oppression have been inspirational to many. She has been the fulltime Coordinator at Tyneside Rape Crisis Centre for over 10 years. Safina was integral to setting up the recently established National Rape Crisis Network and at present is the Treasurer (in a personal capacity). Safina is passionate about women's issues as a whole and she is a great support to many other workers working in a similar field. Safina is always ready to share her knowledge, experience and ideas so that women will benefit from improvements to the services they access.
Organisations
Kay Davies and Helen Danks, as individual women and within Cleveland & Redcar Rape Crisis, have been tireless in raising awareness of sexual violence against women and girls. Their major achievement was awareness-raising, across a five year period, with the eventual outcome of painstakingly re-establishing secure rape crisis services within Cleveland/Teeside after the closure of Create in 2002. They have also made a huge contribution to the new EVA (Emerging from Violence and Abuse in Redcar and Cleveland) which was launched in June 2007.
The Iranian & Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (IKWRO) was established in 2002 by a group of Iranian and Kurdish refugee women who identified the need for a service to provide support, advice and advocacy for women and girls of Middle Eastern origin, particularly Farsi, Kurdish and Arab speaking who are at risk of so called honour killings, domestic violence and forced marriages. IKWRO's work falls under two main headings: direct services for individuals and awareness raising and campaigning work in the realisation that 'honour' killings is an unknown violence against women with no appropriate help for them. IKWRO managed to make a high profile of 'honour' based violence against women and children in the UK and internationally, identified the needs of services for women in need of help, and helped make changes in policy and also in the justice system. For many years, the police, law enforcement agencies and services generally have been reluctant to intervene to protect women from Middle Eastern and Asian backgrounds alleging reasons of 'cultural sensitivity'. The theme of 'cultural hesitance' to intervene recurs throughout IKWRO's campaigning and casework when advocating on behalf of individual women. The service is entirely run by a dedicated team of ten trained volunteers including former service users, and one full-time member of staff. Last year, IKWRO provided direct services to 240 women from throughout the Greater London area. Of these, 46 cases involved service users at risk of 'honour' killing. An additional 350 women received support and guidance over the phone. During the last five years, IKWRO has helped hundreds of women in the UK. IKWRO won the 'Rising Star award' by the Lilith Project (Eaves Housing) for the Best New Voluntary Sector Organisation in 2006.
The Maya Centre is a professionally staffed, multi-ethnic, women's counselling centre. The core of the centre's work is the provision of free, one-to-one psychodynamic counselling, reaching women, many of whom have suffered domestic violence and abuse, who would not normally gain access to long-term therapeutic support.
The Glasgow Women's Support Project is a feminist organisation which works against violence against women and children. They work with a broad range of issues including domestic violence, rape and sexual assault, child sexual abuse, prostitution and pornography. Their ethos is to highlight the links between different forms of male violence and campaign against such violence while continuing to provide a direct service to women who have experienced violence.
