Women's Rights: Friday 20th February 2015

In Afghanistan there are hundreds of young women imprisoned for moral crimes: running away from forced marriages and domestic violence... or simply falling in love and marrying against a father's wishes. To Kill A Sparrow (24 min) is the story of Soheila, but it could be the story of any young Afghan woman. Soheila was only five years old when her father gave her away in marriage to an old man in compensation for her brother's crime of stealing the old man’s third wife. When Soheila ran away from this forced marriage, her father had her arrested and imprisoned. If she insists on making a life with the lover who helped her escape, her father and brother vow to track her down and kill her, "...even if she goes to America..."
Friday 20th February 2015, 1pm Glass Tank exhibition space.
With introduction by the filmmaker Zohreh Soleimani, an Iranian photojournalist who spent three years documenting the plight of women imprisoned in Afghanistan.  She has reported on human rights issues, particularly those affecting women, for more than a decade.

Made in Dagenham (90 min) stars the award winning Sally Hawkins as Rita O'Grady who is the catalyst for the 1968 Ford Dagenham strike by 187 sewing machinists which led to the advent of the equal pay act. Working in impoverished conditions for long arduous hours which they must balance with their domestic lives, the women at the Ford Dagenham plant finally lose their patience when they are reclassified as unskilled. With humour, common sense and courage they take on their corporate paymasters, an increasingly belligerent local community, and finally the government itself.
Friday 20th February 2015, 3pm Main Lecture Theatre, Clerici.

Private Violence (80 min) is a feature-length documentary film and audience engagement campaign that explores a simple, but deeply disturbing fact of American life: the most dangerous place for a woman in America is her own home. Every day in the US, at least four women are murdered by abusive (and often, ex) partners. The knee-jerk response is to ask: “why doesn’t she just leave?” Private Violence shatters the brutality of this logic. Through the eyes of two survivors – Deanna Walters, a mother who seeks justice for the crimes committed against her at the hands of her estranged husband, and Kit Gruelle, an advocate who seeks justice for all women – we bear witness to the complicated and complex realities of intimate partner violence. Their experiences challenge entrenched and misleading assumptions, providing a lens into a world that is largely invisible; a world we have locked behind closed doors with our silence, our laws, and our lack of understanding.
Friday 20th February 2015, 7pm Chakrabarti Room, JHBB.
Followed by a panel discussion featuring:
Michelle Charlesworth has been a Team Leader for ODAS (Oxfordshire Domestic Abuse Service) / WBDAS (West Berkshire Domestic Abuse Service) for the last 3 years, managing 2 refuges, the Helpline service and domestic abuse support workers in 2 counties, viz Oxfordshire and West Berkshire.  Michelle has also worked supporting clients in refuge and on the Helpline and is a Women’s Aid  accredited DAPA (Domestic Abuse Prevention Advocate). Michelle presents the Domestic Abuse Champions Network training in West Berks.
Marylin Anderson   has been a qualified registered social worker for 21 years. She is proud of her social work routes and as such keeps herself involved in this by Continuous professional development and supervising student social workers at ODAS. 2011 she successfully completed a post graduate diploma at the Tavistock Clinic in Higher Advanced Social Work, Leadership and Management Children, Young People and their Families. She has worked in various roles but predominantly in the substance mis-use field and for the past 9 years in the Domestic Abuse sector. She is currently a Team Leader in ODAS managing most of the Oxfordshire refuges, Outreach and Childrens Service.
Suzanne Watts is a registered nurse and health visitor with experience of working in practice, education and research. She is currently studying for a PhD in Psychology at Oxford Brookes.
Dr. Kathleen M. Quinlan, poet, social scientist and teacher at the University of Oxford. Ahead of the screening Kathleen will be reading from her pamphlet, From We to I, which deals with domestic violence and was runner-up for the Cinnamon Press Poetry Collection Award. Her poetry has been placed in numerous literary magazines on both sides of the Atlantic and she has also published poems in several social science academic journals.