Freedom (charity)

Last updated

Freedom Charity
Founded11 August 2009 (2009-08-11)
Founder Aneeta Prem
TypeEducational and support charity
Registration no.1139657
FocusVictims of forced marriage and related violence
Location
  • London
Area served
United Kingdom
ProductEducation, advice, helpline, book, smartphone app
Key people
 Toby Harris, Vineeta Thornhill
Website www.freedomcharity.org.uk

Freedom or Freedom Charity is a UK-based charity which supports victims of forced marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM) and family dishonor. [1] The charity was founded in 2009 by Aneeta Prem and the chair of trustees is Toby Harris.

Contents

Awareness and helpline for forced marriage, FGM and dishonour abuse

The charity provides educational material and teaching and training programmes for schools & front line professionals and runs a 24/7 helpline supported by trained professionals. [1] It is thought there may be 8,000 forced marriages each year in Britain and it is most prevalent in communities originating in South Asia. [2] [3]

The charity operates its own website and also uses social media websites. [4] In conjunction with the UK government's Forced Marriage Unit and the Metropolitan Police, the charity provides a smartphone app which, to divert suspicion, ostensibly looks like a game but which gives information regarding forced marriage for victims and carers and allows helplines to be called and emergency help to be summoned. [5] The organisation aims to give every teenager in Britain a copy of Prem's book But It's Not Fair, a book with governmental recommendation. [6] [7] [8]

Freedom Charity was founded by Aneeta Prem, a magistrate, who was born in London. [1] [3] When working as a karate teacher in London, Prem encountered the problem of forced marriages when teaching martial arts to young women. [9]

On 16 June 2014, The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (UK) [10] made forcing someone into marriage a criminal offence. The charity marked the change in legislation by launching a hashtag campaign #freedom2choose [11] and a video to help raise awareness of the change in legislation was produced. [12] The video featured The Home Secretary, Theresa May; Aneeta Prem, founder of Freedom Charity; Sophie Lott from the government's Forced Marriage Unit; Commander Mak Chishty, National Police Lead on Forced Marriage; Nazir Afzal, Chief Crown Prosecutor of the Crown Prosecution Service for North West England, Edward Pleeth, a barrister; plus an anonymous victim of forced marriage,

Domestic slavery rescue

In October 2013, the organisation was contacted by three women in London saying they had been held as domestic slaves for thirty years. A television documentary on forced marriages, Exposure, followed by an interview with Prem describing the work of Freedom Charity, had prompted one of the victims to call the helpline. Freedom contacted the Metropolitan Police who managed the women's rescue with the assistance of the charity which held secret telephone calls with the captives. [13] Two suspects were arrested. [3] [8]

Red Triangle symbol

An inverted red triangle containing a gold heart is the international symbol for solidarity against female genital mutilation (FGM). [14]

The symbol was first used in 2016 by Aneeta Prem in her novel Cut Flowers and further more as part of the Freedom Charity Red Triangle Campaign on 6 February 2016 for the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council and Freedom charity campaign sold red triangle badges to raise awareness among people that FGM is a crime. The proceeds were used to supply books about FGM to schools. [15]

The Red Triangle symbol represents the female form.

Origins

The red triangle (FGM) symbol was devised by Aneeta Prem, a British author, human rights campaigner, magistrate and the founder and president of Freedom Charity. [16]

Red Triangle campaign 2017

Monday 6 February 2017 saw Freedom Charity launch the Red Triangle campaign. Set to run until International Women's Day on 8 March, the campaign aims to help eradicate FGM in a generation. Those taking part in the campaign are encouraged to wear a small downward facing red triangle to symbolise solidarity against FGM. [17]

Cut Flowers

Cut Flowers is a novel written by Aneeta Prem, the founder of Freedom. The novel is about FGM. Katie and Sophia are two ordinary girls eagerly awaiting the summer holidays until their teacher, Miss Adams, gives them their summer homework – to prepare a presentation about what they did over the holidays. Little did they know that it would be the start of a lifelong mission to protect young girls all over the world. When Katie finally returns from Africa she needs all of Sophia's support and creative flair to shine a spotlight on something that's affecting millions of girls worldwide, but that no one seems to want to talk about. The book has PSHE Association lesson plans to accompany it. The book warns about the dangers of FGM, and is being distributed to schoolchildren to raise awareness of the illegal practice. [17]

But It's Not Fair

But It's Not Fair, another novel by Aneeta Prem, draws Prem's extensive experience supporting child victims of forced marriage and dishonour based crimes through her work with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Government Ministers, the police, survivors and her experiences as a magistrate. The story is written from the view of a young British girl, Vinny, whose friend almost becomes a victim of forced marriage. The book is presented in a chatty and easy-to-read style, but it carries some powerful messages. It not only raises awareness of forced marriage and highlights some of the key signs associated with forced marriage, but it also suggests courses of action that could help potential victims. Freedom Charity distributes copies of But It's Not Fair free to schools, alongside lesson plans for teachers. [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Female genital mutilation</span> Ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the vulva

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the vulva. The practice is found in some countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and within their respective diasporas. As of 2023, UNICEF estimates that "at least 200 million girls... in 31 countries"—including Indonesia, Iraq, Yemen, and 27 African countries including Egypt—had been subjected to one or more types of FGM.

Sex and the law deals with the regulation by law of human sexual activity. Sex laws vary from one place or jurisdiction to another, and have varied over time. Unlawful sexual acts are called sex crimes.

Equality Now is a non-governmental organization founded in 1992 to advocate for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women and girls. Equality Now works through public policy channels to create a just world for women and girls. Through a combination of regional partnerships, community mobilization and legal advocacy the organization works to encourage governments to adopt, improve and enforce laws that protect and promote women and girls' rights around the world.

Kurdish women have traditionally played important roles in Kurdish society and politics. In general, Kurdish women's rights and equality have improved dramatically in the 21st century due to progressive movements within Kurdish society. However, despite the progress, Kurdish and international women's rights organizations still report problems related to gender inequality, forced marriages, honor killings, and in Iraqi Kurdistan, female genital mutilation (FGM).

International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is a United Nations-sponsored annual awareness day that takes place on February 6 as part of the UN's efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation. It was first introduced in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in Mauritania</span> Overview of the status of women in Mauritania

Issues impacting Women in Mauritanian society include female genital mutilation, child marriage, and polygamy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom applying to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It replaced the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, extending the ban on female genital mutilation to address the practice of taking girls abroad to undergo FGM procedures, and increased the maximum penalty from 5 to 14 years' imprisonment. The Act does not extend to Scotland: the corresponding legislation there is the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act 2005.

The status of women in Iraq at the beginning of the 21st century is affected by many factors: wars, sectarian religious debates concerning Islamic law and Iraq's Constitution, cultural traditions, and modern secularism. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women are widowed as a result of a series of wars and internal conflicts. Women's rights organizations struggle against harassment and intimidation, while they work to promote improvements to women's status in the law, in education, the workplace, and many other spheres of Iraqi life, and to curtail abusive practices such as honor killings and forced marriages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comfort Momoh</span> British midwife who specializes in the study of female genital mutilation

Comfort Iyabo Amah Momoh, is a British midwife who specializes in the treatment of female genital mutilation (FGM). Born in Nigeria, Momoh is a member of the British FGM national clinical group, established in 2007 to train health professionals in how to deal with the practice. Until 2017 she served as a public-health specialist at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London. She is the editor of Female Genital Mutilation (2005).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prevalence of female genital mutilation</span>

Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision, is practiced in 30 countries in western, eastern, and north-eastern Africa, in parts of the Middle East and Asia, and within some immigrant communities in Europe, North America and Australia. The WHO defines the practice as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."

Prosecution of gender-targeted crimes is the legal proceedings to prosecute crimes such as rape and domestic violence. The earliest documented prosecution of gender-based/targeted crimes is from 1474 when Sir Peter von Hagenbach was convicted for rapes committed by his troops. However, the trial was only successful in indicting Sir von Hagenbach with the charge of rape because the war in which the rapes occurred was "undeclared" and thus the rapes were considered illegal only because of this. Gender-targeted crimes continued to be prosecuted, but it was not until after World War II when an international criminal tribunal – the International Military Tribunal for the Far East – were officers charged for being responsible of the gender-targeted crimes and other crimes against humanity. Despite the various rape charges, the Charter of the Tokyo Tribunal did not make references to rape, and rape was considered as subordinate to other war crimes. This is also the situation for other tribunals that followed, but with the establishments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), there was more attention to the prosecution of gender-targeted crimes with each of the statutes explicitly referring to rape and other forms of gender-targeted violence.

On 21 November 2013, Metropolitan Police from the Human Trafficking Unit arrested two suspects at a residential address in Lambeth, South London. A 73-year-old ethnic Indian Singaporean man, Aravindan Balakrishnan, and a 67-year-old Tanzanian woman, his wife, Chanda Pattni, had been investigated for slavery and domestic servitude. The case centred around the Workers' Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought commune which was led by Balakrishnan. In the early 1980s after a police raid, Balakrishnan decided to move the group's activities underground. Balakrishnan's control over his followers intensified and the commune became a prison to his followers. On 25 October 2013, three women were rescued from the commune‍—‍these were a 69-year-old Malaysian woman, a 57-year-old Northern Irish woman and a 30-year-old London woman. Morgan-Davies was born into the sect and had not experienced the outside world until her release.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nimco Ali</span> British social activist

Nimko Ali, alternatively spelled Nimco, is a British social activist of Somali heritage. She is the co-founder and CEO of The Five Foundation, a global partnership to end female genital mutilation (FGM).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leyla Hussein</span> British psychotherapist and social activist

Leyla Hussein is a Somali-born British psychotherapist and social activist. She is the founder of Dahlia project, one of the co-founders of the Daughters of Eve non-profit organization and a Chief Executive of Hawa's Haven. In 2020, Hussein was elected Rector of the University of St Andrews, making her the third woman and first woman of colour to hold this position. Her 3-year term in the position has been labelled as 'chronically absent' and 'disappointing'.

Female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom is the ritual removal of some or all of the external female genitalia of women and girls living in the UK. According to Equality Now and City University London, an estimated 103,000 women and girls aged 15–49 were thought to be living with female genital mutilation (FGM) in England and Wales as of 2011.

Aneeta Prem is a British author, human rights campaigner, magistrate and the founder and president of Freedom.

Hibo Wardere is a Somali-born campaigner against female genital mutilation (FGM), author, and public speaker. Born in Somalia, she moved to London, England when just a teenager in 1989, as a refugee fleeing the Somali Civil War. She currently resides in Walthamstow, London, where she worked as a mediator and a regular FGM educator for Waltham Forest Borough. Her testimonials and campaigning work have made her one of Britain's most prominent campaigners about FGM and she has appeared in numerous publications, including the Telegraph, the BBC, and The Guardian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaha Dukureh</span>

Jaha Dukureh is a Gambian women's right activist and anti-female genital mutilation campaigner. Dukureh was subjected to female genital mutilation in the Gambia when she was a little more than a week old. She is the founder and executive director of Safe Hands for Girls, an organization working to end FGM, and was the lead campaigner in The Guardian's End FGM Guardian Global Media Campaign. In April 2016, she was named to the 2016 Time 100 list. Dukureh was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in February 2018, has won the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal, and is a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador for Africa. A feature film about Jaha's life was released by Accidental Pictures and The Guardian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hoda Ali</span> British activist

Hoda Ali is a nurse and human rights activist defending the rights of girls through working and campaigning to end female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom.

The legal status of female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), differs widely across the world.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Women 'held as slaves for 30 years': who are the Freedom Charity?". MSN UK News. MSN. Archived from the original on 23 November 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
  2. ↑ Sterling, Harry. "Op-Ed: Baird is right to shine a light on forced marriage". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved 21 November 2013.[ permanent dead link ]
  3. 1 2 3 Walker, Peter (21 November 2013). "News Society Charities Freedom Charity: the group involved in rescue of London 'slave women'". Guardian. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
  4. ↑ "Freedom Charity freedom charity "Saving lives"". Freedom Charity. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
  5. ↑ "Freedom charity launch forced marriage smartphone app". Scottish Commissioner for Children and Young People. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
  6. ↑ "What We Do". Freedom Charity. Archived from the original on 23 November 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
  7. ↑ Prem, Aneeta (2011). Burns, Jacqueline (ed.). But It's Not Fair. Norwich: Prem Publishing. ISBN   9780956975102.
  8. 1 2 "Women 'held as slaves for 30 years'". News London. BBC. 21 November 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
  9. ↑ "Freedom charity supports forced marriage victims". ITV News. ITV. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
  10. ↑ Legislation on Forced Marriagehttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/12/contents/enacted
  11. ↑ "#freedom2choose hashtag campaign". #Freedom2Choose – We Need You. www.freedomcharity.org.uk. 24 June 2014. Archived from the original on 13 August 2014. Retrieved 24 June 2014.
  12. ↑ "#Freedom2Choose film With Home Secretary". Freedom Charity / Home Office (UK Government). 24 June 2014. Retrieved 24 June 2014.
  13. ↑ Leville, Sandra; Halliday, Josh; Walker, Peter (22 November 2013). "London slaves freed: three women walk out of house after 30 years' captivity". Guardian. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
  14. ↑ Summers, Hannah; O'Kane, Maggie (6 February 2017). "Anti-FGM campaign launched in UK to mark global day of opposition". the Guardian. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  15. ↑ "FGM offenders have escaped justice 'for too long', deputy mayor says". Evening Standard. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  16. ↑ "London 'slaves' case: Aneeta Prem asks 'do we know what's happening". The Independent. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  17. 1 2 Summers, Hannah (6 February 2017). "Anti-FGM campaign launched in UK to mark global day of opposition'". Guardian. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  18. ↑ Simmonds, Mark. "But It's Not Fair'". Government. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.