Welcome to Episode 22 of the Social Justice Salon.

In this episode, we learn about the Boko Haram conflict that is ongoing in the Lake Chad Basin and how it has been affecting children, specifically those drawn into Boko Haram’s forces. Marianne is joined by the fantastic Chitra Nagarajan who gives us a rich insight into their experiences with findings from her extensive research.

Chitra is an activist, adviser, facilitator, researcher, and writer who works to analyse conflict, build peace, and promote and protect human rights, particularly those of women, girls, and other marginalised groups, predominantly in West Africa. She integrates intersectional feminist principles in her work and has written two books: The World Was In Our Hands: Voices from the Boko Haram conflict and She Called Me Woman: Nigeria’s queer women speak.

Marianne and Chitra discuss the different ways that children have been pulled into the conflict, through abduction and through grooming. We touch on the unintended impacts of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign following the abduction of girls from Chibok in 2014, and the different ways children have had to navigate the conflict as wives of fighters, mothers of children when they are children themselves, and as child soldiers.

Links and more info

Visit Chitra’s website

Buy her book The World was in our Hands: Voices from the Boko Haram Conflict

Buy her book She Called Me Woman: Nigeria’s Queer Women Speak

Follow the podcast on Instagram

Follow Marianne on Instagram and TikTok

Become a member of Marianne’s Patreon

Music by Luke Fraser at The Tonic and Artwork was by Marianne

Welcome to Episode 21 of the Social Justice Salon.

In this fascinating and important episode, we learn about the work of Circles-UK. Circles of Support and Accountability are community initiative designed to reduce sex offending among high-risk perpetrators. The CEO of Circles UK, Riana Taylor joins Marianne to discuss their work.

Prior to joining Circles in 2016, Riana was the Director of Operations for two Community Rehabilitation Companies and the Deputy Chief/Director of Strategy for Thames Valley Probation in 2002. She has worked as a consultant in China and Vietnam for the UNDP and Rego Foundation and was formally part of Nelson Mandela’s first democratic government in South Africa as Chief Director of the Department of Safety and Security.

Marianne and Riana discuss the risks that can lead to sexual offending, how they can be prevented, and go into detail about the practicalities of Circles-UK’s work. Riana sets out the ways in which Circles-UK and their providers and volunteers prevent sexual abuse in high-risk sexual offenders through these innovative talking circles. Circles-UK’s work shows that high-risk sexual offenders can be helped to take accountability and stop offending with community support.

Links and more info

Visit the Circles UK website

Follow Circles on Instagram , Facebook , X, Bluesky and LinkedIn

Follow the podcast on Instagram

Follow Marianne on Instagram and TikTok

Become a member of Marianne’s Patreon

Music by Luke Fraser at The Tonic and Artwork was by Marianne

Welcome to Episode 20 of the Social Justice Salon.

In this episode, we learn about the amazing Women’s Revolution that emerged in Rojava in Syria during 2010s. We discuss how the Kurdish women set up an egalitarian society at the same time as fighting the forces of ISIS. Marianne is joined by Rahila Gupta who has been to Rojava and learned all about this region first hand

Rahila is an author and activist. She is a patron of Peace in Kurdistan and on the management committee of Southall Black Sisters. She has authored a huge range of books, articles, short stories, poetry, essays, screenplays and plays for theatre, for names such as The Guardian, New Internationalist, Feminist Dissent, The Independent on Sunday, Asian Times, Spare Rib, Disability Now, The Lancet, and Poetry Salzburg. Most recently, with Beatrix Campbell, she has authored the book Planet Patriarchy a continent-crossing panorama of women’s rights, women’s oppression and women’s politics in the twenty-first century.

Marianne and Rahila discuss the context that the Rojava women’s revolution emerged in, the hideous threat that ISIS posed to women in the region, and how this new society instigated new values, new institutions and a new way of life in northern Syria. It is an episode not to miss.

Links and more info

Buy Rahila’s latest book Planet Patriarchy

Visit her website

Follow the podcast on Instagram

Follow Marianne on Instagram and TikTok

Become a member of Marianne’s Patreon

Music by Luke Fraser at The Tonic and Artwork was by Marianne