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Student Conference Blog

Hidden in the web of streets of Shoreditch sits the Amnesty International UK headquarters. From the 28th to 29th of January, students from across the UK gathered to talk about all things activism, the right to protest and student power. That was all before lunch on day one!

After an introduction to all the members of STAN (the Student Action Network, which is run by NCH's own Lilli Duberlly) we had an incredible visit from Ben Smokes, part of the phenomenal Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants group or 'The Stansted Fifteen’. They demand justice for those being targeted for deportation by the UK Government. After a brief introduction including some shocking pieces of legislation passed by our elected officials, we heard about one of the most impactful demonstrations of human rights protesting in recent years, and one that dominated the news. Amongst all the jokes that had us sniggering, Ben recounted the story of how this human rights group was founded at a party in North London before the pandemic. The action network quickly grew from a group of tipsy friends to a meeting at a local community centre and after hearing stories from people that had faced deportation and racial prejudice in our communities, escalated to the action that shocked headlines- locking themselves to planes used for mass deportation. Ben didn't shy away from the enormity of this decision. He and his friends were more than aware of the possible repercussions. But, after hearing from an incredible woman facing deportation, their minds were made up.

Over the weekend, there were several workshops, seminars and group tasks including a student-led panel about the Stop Killer Robots Campaign, the right to food, reproductive rights, community organising and art as a form of protest. We also heard from Angel Arunta about her experience growing up as a person of colour in Ireland (a country that is 99% white) and her journey to self-acceptance. Our group split up throughout our time there, and everyone said the sessions they attended were phenomenal. From LGBTQ+ rights to a chance to share what we were thinking as young activists, this was a place that genuinely felt buzzing with social progress, acceptance and safety.

One session that really stood out to me was a panel discussing the UK Government’s proposed Legacy Bill that would have massive implications on outcomes of investigations following illegal and immoral acts that took place during the period of trouble in Northern Ireland. The discussion was read by the Student Action Network’s Northern Ireland and Wales representative Leah Ennis, and the most striking part of this session was that she discussed the situation with people that had been affected on both sides of the conflict. As well as talking to an individual whose family was hurt by the British occupation, she welcomed the thoughts of a young man whose brother was killed by the IRA when he was off-duty. They both believed the proposed legislation to be not only a disgusting dismissal of suffering, but a huge infringement on fundamental human rights. If the Bill were to become an Act, it would protect perpetrators of extreme violence on both sides with diplomatic immunity. For the families of victims and the collective identities of many people in Northern Ireland, this feels like erasure of the highest order, explained an individual whose young sister was tragically killed by British troops. The Northern Ireland head of Amnesty Uk Grainne Toggart summed up the proposal as ‘a wrecking ball to a fragile peace settlement’ as it directly violates the Good Friday Agreement and has already faced international condemnation from organisations such as NATO and the UN Commission for Human Rights. Though this was a bleak and harrowing discussion to witness, the genuine goodwill and empathy between two people from opposing sides was touching. As one of the speakers remarked, ‘you might expect us to sit here and blame the other for what happened, but that is not the case today. We stand against a common evil’. When asked if he had anything to say to the students in attendance that I could write in this blog, he summed it up with ‘I am delighted to meet students today and share these experiences. I wish them all the best in the future’. 

As well as exploring wider social and political issues, Amnesty were also keen to talk about the right to striking and civil protests in the UK with Lydia Parker- the campaign manager of the ‘Protect the Protest’. Because this event took place right in the middle of rail and nurses strikes, the country was already thinking about its right to act on unfair conditions and the right to work. The Public Order Bill was also on our minds. But, in a room full of university students, the topic felt a lot closer to home due to the strikes of lecturers, academic staff and researchers taking place with the University and Colleges Union. We started by thinking about why unions are so vital in the first place- weekends, parental leave and minimum wage to start with- before hearing from a postgraduate researcher about the impact on their mental health. Some shocking statistics about the pay gap in academia: 16% between male and non-male academics and 17% between able-bodied and disabled individuals. With the taste for civil unrest, we then made our way to Liverpool Street Station to talk to people about the Right to Food Campaign.

This weekend left me feeling hopeful. Though we had fun and it was a great chance to spend time away from our studies, the issues discussed were of international significance. We were lucky enough to meet Amnesty student groups from up and down the UK, and the atmosphere was phenomenal because we were all united by a common interest. 

I asked the group if they had any closing remarks:

“It was a lot more chilled than I thought”.

“All of the STAN members seem lovely!”

“Amazing to engage in issues in a way that’s personal and not just about the headlines”.

“Shout out Ben Smokes!”

-Anna Langston, Vice-President.

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Reproductive Rights

The annual Amnesty International Student Conference took place on the 28th-29th of January 2023. Amnesty International is the world's leading human rights organisation, campaigning against injustice and inequality everywhere. Lilli Duberley, our NCH Amnesty Society President and the StAN representative for London, led a speech and sparked a huge interest in reshaping how we should look at reproductive rights.

Currently, there is a negative portrayal of the rights surrounding whether individuals should be able to receive an abortion - particularly in the media. For example, in March 2016, Donald Trump argued that women who had abortions should be punished if abortion were made illegal (Jennifer Holland, 2016). However, each year approximately 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion, and according to the Guttmacher Insitute, the abortion rate is 37 per 1,000 people in countries that prohibit abortion altogether or allow it only in instances to save a woman’s life. However, it is evident that criminalising abortion does not stop abortions, it only makes abortion less safe. Unsafe abortion practices can have fatal consequences and result in deaths and injuries that are entirely preventable.

It’s easy to argue that abortion rights are respected in law. However, they are not respected in practice. (1) This has led the StAN Committee (Student Action Network) at Amnesty to attempt to shift our ideology surrounding reproductive rights away from a question of morality to focusing on the science behind it. There are two main types of abortion; medical and surgical. An abortion can be as simple as taking medicine to end the pregnancy. It is a simple procedure that does not require surgery or an anaesthetic. Whether an individual should be entitled to an abortion is not a question of morality or whether it is right or wrong. It is a medical procedure and a human right. (2) Moreover, we need to be considerate of the language we use surrounding those who require access to abortion services and this fundamental healthcare right. It is not exclusively cisgender women and girls. Intersex people, transgender men and boys, and other gender identities who have the reproductive capacity should be included in our discussions surrounding abortion. Amnesty is striving to extend our conversations to become inclusive of people who have the capacity to become pregnant because it is a phrase that should embrace more than simply cisgender women and girls when we’re talking about abortion.

These are important steps to radically alter the current narrative held surrounding reproductive rights, both on an interpersonal and global scale. Abortion is not a question of morality. It is a medical procedure. I ask that you start a conversation with those around you and challenge the status quo. This also provides a perfect opportunity to become involved in the Amnesty Society if you’d like to protect human rights.

-Tyler Gore, Amnesty Int. Society Member

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What Would You Do, If You Held the Power? The NCH Amnesty Society’s Evening with Beth Foster-Ogg

Way back in February (thanks summatives, exams and internships!) NCH Amnesty International Society kicked off with a wonderful workshop led by Amnesty Community Organiser Beth Foster-Ogg. It was a gloomy evening by the waterfront, but room 136 was quickly turned from a mess of desks to a melting pot of ideas, social justice and a healthy helping of righteous anger. 

Snacks purchased, banners up and drinks poured, Beth introduced herself, the work she does with Amnesty in the UK and what our goals were for the evening. Our President, Lilli,  made sure we all got to introduce ourselves, and they also asked us why human rights were important to us. Today’s event was all about community organising- increasing the power of the unspoken and making us critical of those that hold all the strings. ‘Collective power used to shift influence.’ It’s not about removing power, but sharing it. Beth explained that grassroots and community organisations can be some of the most effective ways of toppling the tower of injustice from the very foundations. Community organisations can give voices to the silenced and platforms to the ignored. At NCH, we hope that by working with Amnesty we can become more aware of the human rights problems faced around the world; how we can use our voices as students to speak out against injustice and change things for the better in our own institution. Though we believe that NCH is more of a concrete community than most other UK higher education institutions, we could be better by having increased accessibility and understanding (especially surrounding chronic or invisible illnesses), free access to more library resources, increased support for students on VISAs and more investment into student wellbeing.

The first task of the evening was to identify the problems we see with the world now, how we want the world to be and how we can get there. This last point seemed incredibly daunting, but as Beth said- ‘to get the world from where we are to where we could be, we need little wins.’ We noted down some of the ways the world needs fixing, pointing out elements such as unfairness, restrictions, homophobia, ignorance and prejudice. It’s fair to say we could have needed a bigger whiteboard- that’s what happens when a bunch of opinionated law, philosophy, history and literature students start to talk about society… we identified that in order for the world to be a better place, it needs to be equal, understanding and empathetic. Bonus points to the person who said ‘with an ozone layer and without UKIP.’ In the ‘how do we get there?’ section, suggestions such as ‘increased accessibility, better mental health care’ and ‘affordable education’ were comically sat alongside ‘no more men.’ No comment. As a group, we worked out that in order to reach these goals, we need to challenge corrupt systems of power, face injustice head-on and re-write how minorities are seen. These seemed like rather lofty aspirations for a bunch of students, a few tubes of Pringles and empty bottles of pink lemonade, but we began to understand that in order to make a difference, we don’t need to fix everything. Small social action projects within the walls of Devon House have the potential to have a monumental impact on members of our own community, and even in getting free period products in some bathrooms, we are shifting some of the power directly from the hands of the landlords to the students. We are just getting started.

Beth then took us through some of the definitions and statements that she regularly uses in her work with Amnesty UK. We learnt about the difference between ‘relational power’ (collective power that is used by systems of oppression and those that challenge it) and ‘dominant power’ (power that has status over people.) Both of these forms of influence can be used for good and evil. For example, student groups like us can use our relational power to challenge that which oppresses minorities, but it is also the relational power that has led to the same people being oppressed in the first place. Interestingly, the police could be used as an example of an organisation that belongs in both categories; their numbers make them stronger, but their power and influence is upheld by existing power structures. I’m not a philosopher, so my head was reeling a bit by this point!

After a recap of what Amnesty UK has achieved in the past few years, Beth asked us to identify some of the key factors of our identity that could be the reasons behind our interest in human rights or areas that we would like to campaign about. We could have included anything from educational background, religious preference, ambitions, passions and politics. Around a very badly-drawn stick figure (year 9 art was my limit) I wrote that I am from a very conservative town, want to become a journalist, am a Christian and am committed to campaigning for mental health care. This exercise genuinely brought us out of our shells, because Beth had essentially asked ‘what matters to you?’ It never ceases to amaze me just how varied and amazing the people are at NCH. People were committed to fighting for things I hadn’t even considered! The conversations were flowing and the connections were strong. Our final task of the night was probably my favourite- speak to someone new one to one. Don’t gravitate towards the people you speak to every day. Find out what matters to them, why they’re here and then find some common ground. I ended up speaking to a NU Bound student from the Deep South of America, and it was shocking to find out how our home towns were! Separated by the Atlantic, but both were seemingly fraught with misogyny, backwards ideals and a lack of understanding of young people. What brought us to NCH or Northeastern? A desire to be among like-minded individuals, pursue the subjects we’re passionate about and escape from the places that kept us trapped. As it turns out, we were both really invested in changing the narrative around eating disorders, the way religion is viewed as inherently intolerant and increasing the number of women in journalism! 

Once the event had formally closed, I sat down with Beth and asked her a few questions about how she got started with Amnesty and if she had any advice for our society. Beth is from Hackney, and got her start in campaigning and social justice when she started paying attention to the housing crisis in the UK. She began helping residents campaign against corrupt landlords and low standards of living before becoming involved with the UK branch of Amnesty International in a more official capacity. I asked her what she thought we should focus on at NCH, and she said that we need to work out what is important to our wider College community; listen to how they want to see change and then help to get their voices heard. We know that in order to get anything changed, we need 75% of student consent, so start small and build up. She believed that the accessible period products initiative would be a great place to start- and now that I’m writing this, this has become a reality with the help of the Feminist and LGBTQ+ Societies! Her main message was to speak to the people most affected by any discrimination in the College and help them speak. Never become the mouthpiece- just hold up the megaphone.

This was such a genuinely interesting, thought-provoking and inspiring evening, and I can’t wait to see what we get up to next- watch this space!

- Anna Langston, Amnesty Soc Vice-President.