Nazand Begikhani • نازهند بهگخانی
Nazand is a contemporary poet, writer and researcher from Britain who has Kurdish origins. She’s also actively involved in human rights and one of the founding members of Kurdish Women Action against Honor Killing which was later changed to Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch. She is currently an advising Kurdish MP and advocates for higher education and gender rights in Kurdistan. Nazand has published works in Kurdish, English and French and is a research fellow at the University of Bristol and Editor-in-Chief of the Kurdish edition of Le Monde Diplomatique.
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Nazand Begikhani is a poet of international renown with six poetry collections in Kurdish and one in English, Bells of Speech (Ambit, 2006). She is also the Editor-in-Chief of the monthly journal, Le Monde Diplomatique, Kurdish edition.
Nazand is a based at the University of Bristol as a leading researcher on gender-based violence. She has conducted research on many aspects of violence and gender relations, including honour-based violence and honour killings in Iraqi Kurdistan Region and inside the UK Kurdish diaspora, women and war, rape and sexual violence in Iraq and Syria, domestic violence, and family policy and practice in Kurdistan. She is currently researching gender-based violence inside refugee and displaced communities in the Middle East.
Nazand has worked as an expert advisor and mentor with a range of national and international NGOs and government departments, including, the United Nation’s Assistance Mission to Iraqi (UNAMI), the UN Women, the UK Metropolitan Police, Swedish Ministry of Integration, Kurdistan Regional Government Commission on Violence against Women, Kurdish Women’s Action against Honour Killings, Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch and Amnesty International. She is also an international adviser to Kurdistan Region’s PM on higher education and gender and withing this role integrated gender into academic institutions in IKR and developped curriculum. She also participated as a witness expert in the UK Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee and gave evidence on the 'Role of the UK in the Middle East and the Future of Iraqi Kurdistan'.
She was, for a long period, involved in the campaign against honour-based violence in Europe and has worked in close collaboration with Kurdish and Middle Eastern organisations. Among many conferences, she addressed the 1995 Beijing fourth World conference on women, the UN’s meeting with the World March of Women 2000, the Paris international conference on Kurdish women (2002), Sweden’s international conference on honour killings (2004), Chatham House seminar on the Middle East focusing on Kurdistan Region's independence referendum (2017).
Awards
Nazand has been awarded several international awards, including the UK Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize for her work on HBV (2000), Kurdistan Region’s Sayd Ibrahim’s Memorial Prize for her creativity (2009) and the French Simone Landrey’s Feminine Poetry Prize for her poetry collection, Le lendemain d’hier (2013). Her poetry was also nominated for the Forward Book of Poetry Prize; one of her poems, An Ordinary Day was elected by Forward Poetry Prizes as one of the best 40 poems of the year in the UK (2007).
Teaching interests
Gender-based violence, domestic violence, FGM, migration, refugee women, honour crimes, identity, dislocation, exile and creative writing for women.
Keywords
Gender relations; Violence; women and war, Sexual slavery; Domestic violence; Identity; representation, Creative writing; Ethnicity; Kurds; Kurdistan; Middle East.
Expertise
Nazand has directed groundbreaking research on many aspects of gender relations, abuse and violence. Her recent work include: honour-based violence: experiences and Counter Strategies in Iraqi Kurdistan and the UK Kurdish Diaspora; sexual violence as a war strategy in Iraq; revolutionary fights of Kurdish women against Islamic State of Iraqi and Syria (ISIS); ISIS's treatment of Yezidi women as an act of genocide; researching honour- based violence in Kurdish communities; honour-based violence and Kurdish communities: moving towards action and change.
Nazand has provided expert advice on honour-based violence to a number of government bodies, including Sweden, UK and Kurdistan. Between 2007-2009, she sat on the board of the High Commission to Monitor Violence Against Women in Kurdistan Region and participated, as an expert witness and independent observer, in its seasonal meetings. In 2010, she established the pioneering Gender and Violence Studies Centre at the University of Sulaimaniya, funded by the British Council and the KRG, and, in 2014, initiated the establishment of the Gender Studies Center at the University of Soran, Iraqi Kurdistan. Since 2012, she has been advising Kurdistan Region’s PM to address higher education and gender. Her work has had considerable influence on action and strategy to address HBV in the UK and Kurdistan
شاعیرێکی هاوچەرخه ، نووسهره ، وه توێژهره له بهریتانیا که ڕەسەنی کوردی ههیه ، ههروهها رۆڵێکی چالاکی ههیه له مافی مرۆڤ ، وه یهکێکی له دامهزرێنهرانی چالاکی دژی کوشتنی ئافراتان به ناوی شهرهف که دواتر گۆڕا بۆ مافی ئافراتانی کورد