In this powerful poem spanning a year in the life of a sexual abuse survivor, our 16-year-old writer describes the impact of abuse and raises questions about the way the legal system handles these crimes. The teenage writer is the joint winner of the University of Warwick’s fourth annual Writing Wrongs Schools’ Competition, organised by the Centre for Human Rights in Practice. She reworked this winning article during her internship with Lacuna Magazine.
“The international community always says never again”, says Salah Uddin, a Rohingya man born in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, “but we are letting genocide happen in the 21st century.” In Bradford, we meet the founding members of the British Rohingya Community speaking from the first office used and run by a Rohingya-led organisation anywhere in the world.
In the run up to the general election all political parties are promising to increase public spending. But the past decade of austerity has transformed the UK’s welfare system, forced structural changes, and transformed the relationship between state and society. Muireann O’Dwyer argues a real end to austerity demands a more thoughtful strategy.
A Syrian businessman discovers the harsh reality of life in the jungle, a British community organiser is moved to visit Calais and tries to help, and lawyers look to European Union asylum law for a solution.
“People might speculate on why someone might end up homeless – mental health issues, substance misuse, debt, abuse, relationship breakdown – but very few people understand the day-to-day experience of being homeless.”
Lacuna Magazine is proud to publish stories by younger writers. Here is a selection of stories from school pupils, university students and recent graduates.
Like many LGBT people across the UK, this year’s spate of homophobic attacks has left me hurting. It’s also forced me to reflect on my past, as I’ve noticed a worrying pattern with these incidents – the involvement of young people.
