Make a Stand with The Circle — Protecting Women and Girls Globally
An International Women's Day panel on gender-based violence and collective action, featuring leaders from The Circle NGO and chaired by BBC's Nuala McGovern.
Why we picked this
One in three women worldwide will experience violence in their lifetime — this panel moves past the statistics to examine what collective action actually looks like on the ground.
The Circle is a global NGO dedicated to advancing the rights and wellbeing of women and girls, with particular focus on communities where those rights are most at risk. Founded to translate advocacy into direct action, the organisation works across legal, educational, and economic dimensions of gender inequality. This International Women’s Day event brings together leaders from within The Circle to speak about what the work actually involves — not just the scale of the problem, but the strategies, setbacks, and small victories that make up real advocacy.
Speakers include Raakhi Shah and Delphine Uwamahoro, both of whom bring direct experience of working in contexts where women’s safety and rights are under active threat. Their accounts are grounded in specifics: what happens when legal frameworks fail, how communities organise without institutional support, and where meaningful progress is being made. The panel is chaired by Nuala McGovern, BBC broadcaster and journalist, whose interviewing brings both warmth and precision to the conversation.
The evening falls at a moment when global progress on gender-based violence has stalled or reversed in several regions. This is a panel less interested in marking a date than in asking what it honestly takes — at the policy level, the community level, and the individual level — to protect women and girls when the structures meant to do so fall short.