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Looking Forward, Looking Back: A Conversation on Race & Sexual Violence

Marai Larasi, Shalini Nair and Sumanta Roy join us for a panel discussion.

Join us in listening to the expert perspectives of Marai Larasi, Shalini Nair and Sumanta Roy as they discuss feminism, survivor service provision and the importance of women of colour being included at every level of the conversation. We will be airing this panel discussion at 2pm on Thursday 26th November – join us for the premiere to hear more, and to join the live chat to discuss with other viewers how we can work towards a better world, and better services, for all survivors.
 
This is a huge discussion to cover in an hour, so please join us in seeing this as the start of many (potentially challenging) conversations for us to continue in our own spaces, and not as an exhaustive expression of the needs of women of colour in survivor support work.
 
This event is facilitated by Jay Breslaw, CEO of Survivors’ Network, to mark thirty years of service provision in Sussex for survivors of sexual violence and to look forward to the next thirty years. Jay will hold the space and open the discussion – however, the questions have been agreed collaboratively, and the discussion will be led by the panellists.

Watch the panel discussion on Facebook

Watch here

Meet the Speakers

Shalini Nair is a trustee with Survivor’s Network and a Gender Studies PhD scholar at the University of Sussex whose research is on sexual violence in India. She has been a journalist in India for over 15 years reporting on the social sector policies of the Indian government as well as its implementation on ground. Her work on gender, social justice, and development has received many prestigious national and international awards including the Thomson Reuters Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism, 2018.

Sumanta Roy is currently Head of Research at Imkaan, a national membership organisation for the ‘by and for’ ending VAWG sector.  She has experience of conducting strength-based policy influencing research and evaluation on violence against Black, minoritised women and girls. She recently co-authored an in depth piece of research on sexual violence – Reclaming Voice with Dr Ravi Thiara,  which looked at the interpersonal and structural barriers that survivors were subject; the types of support women and girls value and sector responses. She is very passionate about re-framing  the problematic racialised ways in which research is often carried out.

Marai Larasi is a Black, African-Caribbean-British feminist advocate, community organiser and consultant who has worked in social justice for over twenty-five years, with a specific focus on ending violence against Black / Global Majority women and girls.  She is a former Executive Director of Imkaan. Her work has included, and been framed, by collaborations with other Black/Global Majority and Indigenous feminist activists and practitioners in diverse contexts. She currently works across a range of spheres / sectors providing strategic, policy, practice and training support centred on areas such as decoloniality, intersectionality, racial justice and ending violence against women and girls.