Southall Black Sisters

Southall Black Sisters (SBS) was founded in 1979 after the murder of Blair Peach, a teacher from New Zealand who was killed by the police during a community uprising against the National Front in Southall. The original group of women had been part of the defence committees set up in support of the mainly Asian men who had been arrested for taking part in the uprising. The women faced sexism from their male comrades and a reluctance to challenge domestic violence within the community, at which point they decided to set up SBS.

BY 1982 the group had become inactive. Pragna Patel joined the group and reactivated it, procured a Greater London Council grant and established a centre in 1983 which provided services to Asian, African and Caribbean women to address the discrimination and violence they were subjected to, including domestic abuse, racist employment practices and homelessness. Hannana Siddiqui and Meena Patel joined in 1987. Other notable South Asian feminists were involved with the organization in the early years, including Gita Sahgal, Muneeza Inam, Shakila Maan and Rahila Gupta. Hannana Siddiqui, Muneeza Inam, Shakila Maan and Rahila Gupta remain involved to this day.

Southall Black Sisters supported notable campaigns against racism and sexism during its early years. For example, in 1979 SBS joined OWAAD and Awaz to campaign against virginity testing at Heathrow Airport. In addition, between 1979 and 1980, SBS supported the eight-month-long Chix confectionery factory strike in Slough, which was led by South Asian women. In 1984 SBS organized the first women’s march through Southall in support of Krishna Sharma, a woman who committed suicide after suffering domestic violence. SBS were involved in a film on domestic violence titled ‘A Fearful Silence’, which aired on Channel 4 in August 1986.

In 1983 the organization was granted funding by the GLC to set up the first women’s centre for racialized minority women in Southall, Ealing. The Southall Black Women’s Centre was set up at 88 Northcote Avenue. In 1986 the group moved to 52 Norwood Road after a split among the workers. The Centre advised on various concerns, including immigration, housing and familial problems. However, this funding was threatened in 1987 and, in response, SBS began the ‘Save SBS’ campaign. SBS believed that resistance against the organization was led primarily by the Indian Workers’ Association (IWA), which had persuaded some South Asian councillors from Ealing Council to end their support for SBS. The reason, they argued, was because the IWA believed SBS was conspiring against local communities and traditional family structures. SBS suggested these views reflected IWA’s patriarchal and male-dominated nature, which overlooked the specific needs of women. In an interview with the Independent in 1992, Pragna Patel recalled that, during a campaign to support a woman who was attacked when working at the Dominion Community Centre in Southall, the IWA called SBS affiliates ‘lesbians’ and ‘homewreckers’.

Despite the criticism, SBS was able to continue operating and retained their funding from Ealing Council. Their most notable campaigns include successfully resisting the conviction of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, who was charged with murder after killing her abusive husband in 1989 and was released in 1991. In addition, in 1989 SBS set up Women Against Fundamentalism in response to the Salman Rushdie affair. SBS continued supporting striking South Asian women workers, including the 1992 year-long Burnsall strike in Birmingham where South Asian women resisted exploitative working conditions. In the 1990s they began a campaign against immigration rules which trapped women in violent marriages because they had arrived on a spousal visa and faced deportation and/or destitution if they attempted to leave the relationship. Over the next thirty years, SBS won a number of domestic violence concessions. They are now campaigning to ensure that these concessions are extended to all migrant women. As SBS’s reputation grew, the demand on their services expanded and casework ballooned. SBS set up a support group for women to participate in activities including English language courses and arts and crafts.

In 1989 SBS published the book Against the Grain: A Celebration of Survival and Struggle, Southall Black Sisters, 1979–1989, which marked the organization’s ten-year anniversary. In 1992 SBS won the Martin Ennals Civil Liberties Award for their outstanding work in improving women’s rights.

In 1997 the autobiography of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, Circle of Light, was published. This was co-written with Rahila Gupta. The book was later reprinted in 2007 and titled Provoked. In 2007 the film Provoked, co-scripted by Rahila Gupta and starring Aishwarya Rai, was released.