Sharmila Parmanand will respond to the inaugural Fabian International Policy Group Christmas lecture on the future of UK foreign policy.
A Gates Cambridge Scholar is taking part in an all-female panel discussion on the future of UK foreign policy at the Palace of Westminster tonight.
Sharmila Parmanand is taking part in the Fabian International Policy Group event and responding to the inaugural Christmas Lecture given by former UN Deputy Secretary-General Lord Mark Malloch-Brown.
Lord Malloch-Brown's lecture will consider some of the big trends shaping the world today and what it means for the UK. In the context of what is happening with Brexit, it will also explore the challenges and opportunities for the country, and address the key question of what kind of ‘global power’ Britain should aspire to be. In addition, it will set out a future strategy and agenda for the UK’s foreign policy.
Sharmila [2016], who is doing a PhD in Multi-disciplinary Gender Studies, will join fellow panellists, including Helen Goodman MP, Shadow Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Minister, Brexit expert Georgina Wright from Chatham House and Leslie Vinjamuri, Head of the US and the Americas Programme at Chatham House to respond to the speech.
Sharmila Parmanand is former Director of Policy and Advocacy at Visayan Forum Foundation which works for the welfare of marginalised migrants in the Philippines. She is also a debating champion and coach and is co-chief adjudicator for the European University Debating Championship 2019 taking place in Athens.
Sharmila Parmanand
- Alumni
- 2016
- Philippines
- PhD Multi-disciplin Gender Studies
- Homerton College
Having lived in the Philippines, I am interested in how state policies and other interventions targeted at poor women interact with their lived realities. For my master’s thesis at the University of Melbourne, I conducted interviews with female microcredit borrowers to examine the traditional assumption that access to credit empowers women, especially mothers. After working in the anti-human trafficking sector for over two years, I would like to critically assess anti-trafficking discourses and policies in the Philippines. For my PhD in Gender Studies in Cambridge, I will examine the anti-trafficking ecosystem, and in particular, the policy-making process, the knowledge claims made about victims and women in vulnerable employment situations and how these claims are negotiated and produced, the relationships among international funders, the state, and civil society actors, and the effects on women of measures such as raids and rescue operations and rehabilitation. With my work, I hope to give primacy to the experiences of individuals directly affected by these interventions, explore any possible unintended consequences, and contribute to the ongoing conversation about how best to uphold their agency and human rights. I also work as a debating coach and trainer and I have done so on a voluntary basis in 28 countries.
