Helena Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws
politician, lawyer, activist, author
Helena Ann Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, LT, KC, FRSA, HonFRSE (born 12 May 1950), is a Scottish barrister, broadcaster, and Labour member of the House of Lords. A Bencher of Gray's Inn, she is President of Justice, the law reform think tank, and a director of the International Bar Association's Institute of Human Rights. She was Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, from 2011 to 2018.
Quotes
edit- This is Schindler's List time. These women were in mortal danger. They were running courts on things like domestic violence and child marriage and many of them locked up [the] Taliban. As soon as [the] Taliban came back they had to flee.
- Cited by Christina Lamb in "Afghan female judges rescued by Baroness Kennedy", The Times (31 October 2021)
- Baroness Kennedy raised more than a £1 million in donations from individuals such as J.K. Rowling to airlift from Afghanistan 500 people (including 103 women who were on the Taliban's "kill list") who were female judges, other endangered women and their families
- [On the situation for women in Afghanistan after the 2020–2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan] They were not allowed to leave home without a male escort. They were not allowed to go to work. They were not allowed to continue with their education. Their sex became the limitation on what they could do or be. This is true for all women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban reign.
- "Europe faces Schindler’s List moment", The New European (4 November 2021)
- I have still got women sending me the most tragic, terrible text messages and phoning me at all hours, saying "please help me, I am hiding in my basement, I didn't get on your planes in 2021 because my mother was dying, I couldn't leave at the time, but now they are after me."
- Sometimes they are Afghanis who have worked for us.
Sometimes they are Afghanis of a particular minority called the Hazara, who get slaughtered as soon as the Taliban look at them.- "Baroness tells of 'terrible texts' from trapped Afghan women pleading for help", The Independent (25 June 2003)
