Marai Larasi feels a “deep sadness and outrage” at the hostile environment facing black and minority ethnic women at risk of domestic violence and other abuse in the UK in 2019. Larasi, who steps down in May as the executive director of Imkaan, a charity providing services dedicated to ending this violence, says: “There’s something absolutely distressing about trying to run services, trying to live, trying to be safe at a point where we’re being told to go home – and where we have politicians who do not see us as worthy citizens.”

Women of colour fleeing violence need help – not penalties for who they are | Lola Okolosie Read more

Addressing the rise of Ukip, the surge of xenophobia and racism following the Brexit vote, and the government’s crackdown on immigrants and targeting of the Windrush generation (Larasi’s parents came to Britain from Jamaica in the 1950s), she says: “I’m angry and I’m hurt in equal measure. I’m hurt that this country doesn’t feel that BME women are important enough to deserve a safe place for us to live, breathe and work in – whether we’re seeking refuge from an individual violent partner within the same town, or whether we’re seeking refuge because another country has become unsafe for us.”

What does Larasi make of the recent furore over comments made by the chief executive of domestic abuse charity Women’s Aid, Katie Ghose, in praise of Ukip? Videos shared by feminist activists on social media show Ghose, in her former role as the head of the Electoral Reform Society, complimenting Nigel Farage and MP Douglas Carswell at the 2015 Ukip conference and sharing a platform at a subsequent fringe event with Katie Hopkins.

Last week, Women’s Aid announced that Ghose had stepped down, by mutual agreement. But wasn’t it her job at the ERS to talk to all sorts of political parties and commentators about the need for electoral reform? And Ghose has spoken of the racism she faced growing up with an Indian father and a white British mother .

Larasi, a former joint chair of Women’s Aid, believes the charity needs to directly address the concerns it raised about racism raised. She says: “As a partner organisation, we feel it’s really important for Women’s Aid to make a statement about where it stands with regards to equality issues, rather than saying it was a mutually agreed stepping down. As someone leading a BME women’s organisation, I want some reassurances that Women’s Aid are committed to working from a strong intersectional approach. I hope Women’s Aid come out soon and says where it stands on issues about race.”

This clarity is necessary given the swingeing cuts to dedicated BME services which has led to their work being taken over by “mainstream” providers often lacking specialist knowledge and expertise, says Larasi. “We’re talking about something like 50% of the BME services that existed in terms of refuge provision 25 years ago not being there any more. BME services are still being closed down and not just because of competitive tendering for state funding, but because our sisters fail to see that we are important enough for them to act in solidarity with us. Instead, they’re going to a market-driven approach where they compete against BME services rather than working with us. From that level, I don’t feel progress happening.”

Play Video 1:20 'We stand in solidarity': Emma Watson and activist Marai Larasi on Golden Globes red carpet – video

In her early career, Larasi, who is also co-chair of the End Violence Against Women coalition, worked for general women’s refuge services, including ones in Camden and Hackney. Although there was a strong sense of collectivism, she says there were always fractures around race. “I remember being at one conference and causing quite a lot of upset around why one of the first studies looking at BME women’s experiences in mainstream services wasn’t being prioritised, and why Women’s Aid hadn’t pushed it to the forefront,” she says. “I joined the Women’s Aid board all those years ago because I wanted us to do better things around BME women and BME services.”

Larasi, who has an MA in culture, diaspora and ethnicity from Birkbeck, University of London, says that she immediately felt more at home at Imkaan because of its intersectional approach to sexism and racism. During her decade in charge of the network, Larisa has co-written reports on best practice for helping BME victims and survivors of violence against women and girls, using research showing how some providers’ racial stereotyping of certain ethnic groups as more dangerous, patriarchal, or inclined towards extremism, deters BME women from seeking help.

She also notes that young BME women report that sexual harassment against them involves racist slurs, but complain that this is not recognised by generic women’s services. “I know as a woman who’s African-Caribbean, and who is visible by the way that I dress as a lesbian, that the way that I’m targeted [for harassment] plays out in a particular way,” she says. “If I go to a service and they tell me that they don’t see colour or colour doesn’t matter, then I’m like, OK. That actually matters to me!”

What about government policy? “No government has ever got it right with respect to BME services, whether that’s the benevolence of the left or the exclusions of the right.” She says the government’s draft domestic abuse bill fails to comprehensively address all forms of violence facing women and girls, including forced marriage and female genital mutilation, which BME women are at greater risk of. “For us as BME women, knowing that the vast majority of people in leadership don’t truly represent us and don’t truly prioritise our concerns makes it very difficult,” says Larasi.

Her renown as a feminist campaigner was reflected last year when, in an effort to raise awareness of the #TimesUp campaign against sexual harassment, she was among a select group of gender and racial justice advocates invited by Hollywood actors to be their plus-one at the Golden Globes. Larasi walked the red carpet wearing a tuxedo and boots with Harry Potter star Emma Watson. But she admits fearing that her peers would think she had sold out. “I had a complete meltdown, like, ‘Are you mad? I can’t do that!’” Larasi says, adding that it was her children who convinced her to take part. “They were quite pointed: ‘This is about what you’re committed to, and you kind of need to go represent, mum.’ (Larasi subsequently joined Thor: Ragnarok star Tessa Thompson to promote #TimesUp at last year’s Bafta awards.)

What advice does Larasi have for women’s services that want to better serve BME women? She says they cannot start from the premise that the right version of womanhood is white and middle class, with black women and lesbians seen as add-ons, she says, noting that her own advocacy is rooted in black feminism. They need a strong commitment to equality, with the most marginalised groups at the centre of their strategy and in decision-making positions.

“If we can’t do that, we’re just reinforcing the power structures that already exist. We can’t have social justice squeezed out of our work.”



Curriculum vitae

Age: 49

Lives: North London

Family: In a relationship, one daughter and one son

Education: Clarendon college high school, Jamaica, and City and East London College, London; Howard University, Washington DC (psychology); Birkbeck, University of London (culture, diaspora and ethnicity MA)

Career: 2011-present: joint-chair, End Violence Against Women coalition; 2009-2019: executive director, Imkaan; 2004-13: joint chair, Women’s Aid; 2000-2009: chief executive, the NIA project; 1996-1999: manager of women’s refuge provision, the NIA project.

Interests: Reading Alice Walker and Afrofuturist literature