Putting their suffragette spirit on the map: meet the women human rights defenders

To mark International Women's Day, Amnesty International is shining a light on Britain’s women human rights defenders, reports Nicola Moyne

Over the past month, Amnesty International has been calling on the public to nominate the women making a difference to society, and its Suffragette Spirit Map of Britain, which launches today to celebrate International Women’s Day, showcases the women human rights defenders who are working hard to help the people in their community.

Helen Pankhurst, a women’s right activist and writer, and the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, is an advocate of the Suffragette Spirit Map of Britain campaign and says: ‘The sheer quantity of nominations and the range of issues being tackled head-on by these brave women is astonishing. There are women who have set up support groups to aid refugees; women who are tackling the issues surrounding domestic abuse through theatre; women who have set up initiatives to tackle bullying in schools; women who have set up charities to tackle period and clothing poverty; women who stand up for pensioners’ rights; women who work to provide better facilities for disabled people.

‘From Scotland to Wales, from Northern Ireland to England – the Suffragette Spirit Map reminds me that our country is filled with human rights defenders who, unhappy with the status quo, know that sometimes deeds, not words are needed to make a world of difference.’
 

Emma Norton, Head of Legal Casework at Liberty, pictured above

Emma Norton, Head of Legal Casework at Liberty – an organisation renowned for campaigning for fundamental rights and freedoms in the UK – has certainly earned her place on the map, having helped fight for women’s human rights for more than nine years. She says: I draw a lot of energy from my work and I am proud of what I do. The clients and families I am privileged to represent bring [their] cases so that lessons will be learned, and to change things for other people.

‘I have been very lucky to work with lots of brilliant feminist women and men. But in the world outside of work I’ve experienced sexual harassment, indecent exposure and groping – relatively common hazards to navigate as a younger woman – as well as inappropriate advances by employers, even teachers. Almost all women I know have had experiences like this. That’s why I’m passionate about the cases that can bring real reform to help women.’

But you don’t need to work in the legal profession to action positive change. ‘Check your own prejudices – everybody has them,’ says Norton. ‘Call out bad behaviour when you see it and do it quickly. Encourage girls and boys to think of themselves as feminists from an early age. Check out the Women of the World Festival and The Guilty Feminist podcast, and always keep your sense of humour.’

To be inspired by the women human rights defenders living in your community now, head to amnesty.org.uk/suffragettespirit and check out the Suffragette Spirit Map of Britain.

Read more about today's human rights defenders at Marie Claire UK

Two women on ridiculously small monkey bikes; one goal; zero experience: 'Why we really rode across Morocco'

Kicking off a new series of interviews with gutsy female adventurers ripping up the rule book, Nicola Moyne speaks to actors and writers Georgia Maguire and Molly Beucher, who embarked on a gruelling seven-day motorcycle tour across Morocco in partnership with female-empowerment charity Education For All Morocco

With its endless sun-drenched horizons, labyrinth-charged Medinas and sea of scarlet dunes, Morocco is a country that continues to incite wanderlust and demand exploration. Unless you happen to have a vagina, apparently. Despite Elspeth Beard circumnavigating the globe on a motorcycle – yes, all by herself – back in 1982, the biggest hurdle Georgia Maguire (pictured above, left) and Molly Beucher (above, right) faced before tackling the Sahara desert on monkey bikes (that's smaller-than-your-average motorcycles to you and me) wasn’t mapping out the route or overcoming their zero mechanical know-how. It was gender discrimination.

‘A lot of people’s responses to what we were doing surprised me,’ says LA-based Beucher. ‘People being concerned because we’d never ridden a motorbike before – that I could understand, but people were mostly concerned that two women would be travelling alone through Morocco. It definitely turned into a self-empowerment project; a tangible reminder that women are capable of doing anything they set their mind to, even if that is riding a ridiculously small motorcycle across a foreign country.’

‘It’s fair to say that neither of us had any real experience riding motorcycles before we set off. Actually, I’m terrified of motorbikes,’ admits Maguire over a coffee back in London. ‘But that was one of the reasons we really wanted to do this: we were sick of people telling us we couldn’t do something that was out of our comfort zone, so we started from the viewpoint, “What shouldn’t we do and where shouldn’t we go?” That’s how we hit on riding monkey bikes through the Sahara desert. Without men.’

Here, the @monkeybikemafia duo recount their experiences of traversing 1,000km from Merzouga on a route that took them over punishing terrain through the Atlas Mountains and ended in exultation at 12,000m in the rocky peaks of Terres d’Amanar.

Smaller-than-your average bikes built for a bigger-than-you-can-imagine adventure

THE PRE-GAME

Molly Beucher: ‘The Skyteam Minis we hired, otherwise known as monkey bikes are 49CC motorbikes with a 4-stroke engine, 8-inch wheels, and a seat height of a little over 2ft. Basically, they’re tiny, which actually came in handy every time we fell off.’

Georgia Maguire: ‘Thankfully, we had some basic motorcycle training in the UK with Chris Salt at Dockland Riders first, who was brilliant, and we decked ourselves in the best protective gear from Knox. But we realised that we really didn’t know what we were doing quite quickly. We spent most of the training sessions horizontal… I did have good uphill game, though.’

MB: ‘A part of me secretly expected to do a running leap on to those little bikes and take off into the sunset like a total pro. Sadly, it turns out I’m a mediocre motorcyclist at best and riding a motorcycle on sand is almost impossible. I had very little faith in my ability to even get out of the Sahara desert in one piece, let alone all the way to the other side of the country. But once we got the hang of how to actually control the monkey bikes, they were really fun to ride – we named them Black Beauty and Steven, and even snuck in a few wheelies. I wish I could say they were on purpose but, sadly, it’s just a side effect of releasing the clutch too quickly. And because the monkey bikes broke down every single day, we got really good at miming or replicating noises in an attempt to explain to local mechanics what we thought was going on. In retrospect, some knowledge of Arabic mechanical terms would have been helpful.’

Molly gets her monkey bike repaired by the locals…again

THE LONG WAY THROUGH

GM: ‘The Moroccan landscape is so incredibly diverse – one minute we would be snaking our way down a tiny gravel Billy-goat track, the next we’d be bouncing through sand dunes the size of houses in the sweltering heat. On our last day, we rode through a snowstorm. It was a complete whiteout and so beautiful, but some days we failed to cover little more than 50km because of the tough terrain. At one point, we were even picked up by a local milk cart after Molly’s bike broke down.’

MB: ‘Tackling those gravel goat trails at 6km per hour on our monkey bikes was hysterical. You could probably run up the Atlas Mountains faster. But we got a lot of help on the route from the head of the Moroccan tourism board in London, Amine Boughaleb. He put us in touch with Reda Jabri, who used to run bike tours throughout Morocco. Reda met with us in Marrakech and suggested the most scenic itinerary, and warned us off roads that weren’t passable. That said, we were reminded very early on to stay alert after witnessing a bad motorcycle accident in a small village. Thankfully the rider was OK, but his bike was totalled and the sound of that crash stayed with us throughout the trip. About half way through we encountered what I would say was our most technically difficult ride on the monkey bikes: we were on a narrow trail with a steep drop on one side; we crossed streams and mud pits, then eventually climbed up a snow-peaked mountain. When we got to the top, a man herding his sheep walked past us, waving. We waved back and I just remember looking at George and saying, “What we are doing is so incredibly strange!”’

Some of the inspiring young women who attend the Education For All Morocco boarding house

THE PERFECT PARTNERSHIP

MB: ‘We knew from the get go that we wanted this to be a female empowerment trip and we wanted to partner with a charity that shared that same ideology. Education For All Morocco (EFA) is an amazing organization that allows young girls from the remotest villages of the Atlas Mountains to receive an education. It seemed like a perfect fit.’

GM: ‘We were lucky enough to visit the EFA boarding house and meet the girls being educated there [pictured above]. We asked one girl what she would be doing if she wasn’t at the boarding house and she said she would be married. I asked her if she wanted to be married and she shouted, ‘‘No!’’ All the girls roared with laughter. They just want the chance to choose their own fate; to be teachers or pilots or astronauts.’

BECAUSE YOU CAN

GM: ‘We’re told so often that things are unachievable because of our gender or because of our skillset, but nothing is impossible. Gender is irrelevant. And the experience was pretty purging. At the start, I found riding all day with a helmet on quite lonely, but you’re forced to just focus on the road ahead. It was almost meditative in that respect.’

MB: ‘There was the high of completing this mad journey that so few people, including at times myself, thought possible. Plus, the joy of experiencing a beautiful country in a completely new way – not hidden behind the four walls of a car, but exposed and fully immersed. One of the great things about our bikes being so small was that they were a real conversation starter and made people laugh. Laughter is incredibly disarming and it translates. Without the kindness and impressive mechanical skills of strangers, we wouldn’t have got to the finish point. And if we changed just one person’s mindset [about women travelling alone] along the way, that’s a start, right?’

For more on their monkey bike adventure through Morocco or to help raise funds for EFA, follow @monkeybikemafia on Instagram, hit their Twitter account @MonkeyBikeMafia or head to the Facebook page @monkeybikemafia

See Georgia Maguire in Patrick Melrose on Sky Atlantic and the forthcoming Modern Horror Stories for Comedy Central.

Molly Beucher is currently producing and acting in feature film IRL, out in autumn

'We are not mosquitos, we are women. We deserve a life'

NGO Swasti’s new Integrated Community Health and Wellbeing (ICHW) centre is helping to improve the sanitation and basic healthcare problems in Mohammadpur village. Located on the outskirts of Delhi, the village is home to hundreds of female garment workers. Tin-roofed shacks commonly house a family of five in each room; stray malnourished dogs populate the crumbling courtyards; disease is rife, which is why ‘quacks’ or unqualified doctors who set up makeshift huts here often do a roaring trade – particularly among female members of the community.

‘Women here are too afraid or ashamed to go to hospital, so quacks are their only resort,’ Shaonli Chakraborty, Swasti’s programme director and founder of the ICHW centre. ‘We are fighting to tackle the sanitation issues here, but by offering home appointments, sexual healthcare and accessible sanitary pads, we’re reaching more women than we ever thought possible. These women are often prisoners in their own home; our service is medical and emotional – we’re a lifeline.’

The centre’s social impact on the village is palpable. It’s yet to even officially open its doors, but the need for professional medical help is so great that the centre is already treating up to 15 people a day and offering a support network for women who have no where else to turn. Mamta, a beautiful, head-strong woman veiled in red (pictured above), meets weekly with other women in the centre’s self-help groups, which have formed voluntarily to reach out to vulnerable women in the community. Inside the building’s dark, protective walls, far from the earshot of curious men lingering outside, she tells me, ‘In this village, there was no difference between a mosquito and a woman. The group gives me a purpose to leave the house. I feel empowered now, where once I was oppressed. Finally, I feel human. And I am determined to help other women here find freedom.’

Another, Priyanka, shares with me a poem she has written in English since taking language lessons at the centre. It is entitled ‘ I believe’.

The women here are still too afraid to exit ICHW’s doors without wearing a full-face veil, but despite the oppressive heat and suspicious stares in this sewage-strewn home to thousands, it feels as though some of the fears for their future may finally be lifting.

To read the full article, click here

Hit the Instagram feed

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize