After attending the Wollstonecraft Society Annual Lecture in May, hosted by Baroness Helena Kennedy with Judge Fawzia Amini, Mrs Ellison felt both inspired and moved to share the story with our students here at Sydenham High in a lunchtime lecture of her own.

Since the withdrawal of US and UK troops in Afghanistan last summer and the consequent Taliban resumption of power, the lives of all women in Afghanistan have become curtailed. Basic rights, such as leaving the house unaccompanied or having an education, have been taken away. Mrs Ellison’s lecture focused on the plight of those who had been educated and who helped create the democratic systems Afghanistan had been working for 20 years, since 2001/2.   

The female judges in the country were on a Taliban kill list immediately and had to flee for their lives from men they had imprisoned for crimes against women. The Taliban hold the belief that a woman can never sit in judgement over a man. Many went into hiding, some escaped, but all of them had to flee their homes, their families and their jobs. While a difficult story to hear and a challenging one to tell, it is powerful because it embodies the way women are still subjected to the dominance of men and can have their entire lives shaped, or even ended by them. 

It is also a story of how other women of influence around the world stood up, when governments did not, to help rescue these women and provide refuge. It is a powerful story and one which sees Judge Fawzia Amini still living with her family in a London hotel. You can listen to Fawzia’s story and the stories of other Afghan women like her here:

 https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2022/05/202205031800/solidarity