7th January 2021

Happy New Year Feminists!

Feminists across the world celebrated the passing of the Abortion Act in Argentina at the end of last year. The report for FiLiA by Marta Nunez A Feminist Victory in Argentina: Abortion is Legal includes a video clip from Angeles Anchou, feminist activist from Vivas Nos Queremos and an interview with Alicia Schejter, 71-year-old Argentinian feminist and long-term activist in the struggle for legal abortion.

I feel so excited! In my time we were five crazy women on the corner, very exposed to attacks by a very hypocritical society. This struggle was a pillar of my life, and now I hand the struggle to our granddaughters. They should expand the right to abortion in the rest of Latin America. Alicia Schejter

“It is Law!” © Angeles Anchou

FiLiA has been busy over the holiday period, developing the FiLiA Legacy Project, connecting with Women doing incredible work all over the world, and building the team. We now have around 70 volunteers, including our latest - a Sister from Bangladesh who will support us in amplifying the voices of eco-Feminists, and a Sister in Brazil who will be supporting Marta to build our connections there.

We signed a letter of support for Zara Kay, calling on the Tanzanian government to unconditionally and immediately drop all the charges against Zara and allow her to leave the country. #JusticeForZara

We released a new podcast: #120 Susan Hawthorne - Vortex: the Crisis of Patriarchy and a new blog too: Life as a Migrant Worker, Migrant Wife and Migrant Activist in Taiwan by Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hà and Isabelle Cheng.

We exchanged ideas with abolitionists in Japan and the US and will be sharing more of their work in the coming weeks. We’ve won funding for an exchange trip with Japan, and look forward to welcoming them to FiLiA2021, where they will be able to connect with UK abolitionist groups.

At the end of 2020 we shared in our newsletter that we’ve won funding to digitalise and share audio recordings from the renowned ‘International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Women's Citizenship’ held in Brighton in 1996. I’ve heard so many Women speak about this extraordinary event. The project, Revealing Women’s lost history through events, exhibitions and webinars is going to be exciting and emotional for many. If you attended in 1996, please do let us know - we’d love to hear from you as we develop this project!

We are being optimistic, and proceeding as though FiLiA2021 will go ahead (see you on the dance floor!). All those of you who bought tickets for 2020 - these are automatically carried over to this year. Please do consider buying a Solidarity Ticket if you can comfortably do so. We gifted around 180 last year (thank you) and our aim is to increase that to 250 in 2021.

We’re looking for more volunteers. Please let us know if you are interested in joining us. We’ve a busy year ahead, and have lots to get done. If you have the skills and the passion, we’d very much like to hear from you. FiLiA recognises that the Women’s movement loses out if it is not informed by the voices and experiences of marginalised Women in our community. Consequently, we particularly welcome Women who are less often heard or purposefully silenced to join us as volunteers.

Sisterhood and Solidarity!

LM