Voice of Freedom talk at Brixton Library

By Lucy Binnersley

Later today Leila Segal will give a 10-minute presentation in the foyer of Brixton Library of photography created by the women on the project – with a background about my experience of working with them, and some of their own words about their work. It will be an opportunity for people to gather and reflect with me on work these amazingly courageous women have produced.

Leila has just returned from running Voice of Freedom, a photography project with African women who have escaped trafficking and are now living in a safe house in Israel. This project, which was developed over two years, then run in partnership with UK charity PhotoVoice, enabled the women to document their lives, feelings and experiences through the camera lens and supported them as they created texts in their own words to accompany the images.

Voice of Freedom saw a group of Ethiopian and Eritrean women pick up cameras for the first time in their lives, and create a body of work around their own experience of trafficking through Sudan, and the Sinai torture camps. What is happening in Sinai is one of the world’s gravest human rights violations at present – trafficked women and men are tortured, gang-raped and murdered there every day. They are held by traffickers until ransom can be extorted from families back home in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The women who Leila worked with have all survived these camps and made it into Israel over the border with Egypt. From there they eventually reached the safe house where Voice of Freedom took place.

Voice of Freedom speaks eloquently to the theme of Silent Cacophony – silence during war and conflict. The whole point of Voice of Freedom is for women who have been trafficked to speak, to gain a voice through creating art.

Brixton Library, Monday November 11, 2pm & 3pm

For more info visit:  ourvoiceoffreedom.wordpress.com