When Zimbabwe erupted in protests, Anoshamisa Gonye found she was unable to communicate with her cousins there due to an internet shutdown. In this podcast she asks why governments are increasingly silencing the internet in times of civil unrest and what can be done when lines of communication are cut.
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.
Despite this year’s polarised politics and bleak news agenda, inspiring tales have emerged of grassroots action, of communities determined to continue despite conflict, and refugees rebuilding their lives and helping others. We’ve seen women making their voices heard and our story about LGBT rights has been quoted in Parliament. In a timely reminder of the power of people and positivity, here is our editor’s pick of uplifting human rights stories from 2019.
“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.
