In just 10 years, Stacey Dooley has made 90 documentaries for the BBC. She came to prominence in 2008’s Blood, Sweat and T-shirts, a documentary on child labour and slavery. Stacey joined Ray D’Arcy to talk about some of the remarkable women she’s met along the way, to mark International Women’s Day and to celebrate the launch of her new book, On the Front Line With the Women Who Fight Back.
Calling the book a “very frank look at the situation and the circumstances for some of the girls around the world at the moment”, Stacey told Ray about meeting a woman called Heidi in Honduras, “the most dangerous place to be a woman”. Heidi had recently left a violent partner. Her partner attacked her with a machete in front of their children when he learned she was leaving him, causing her to lose both of her legs.
“He said to her something like, you can't leave me if you’ve got no legs…It’s a complete miracle she lived.”
Stacey told Ray that Heidi’s “remarkable” outlook stayed with her.
“She was so…poised and principled and calm. And just very matter of fact about what had gone on. And, I think, probably because this isn’t an isolated case. Far from it. She’s seen girls in similar situations.”
Another group of women who made an impression on Stacey were the Yazidi women in Iraq. Captured in their hundreds by ISIS fighters and tortured and sexually abused, the survivors banded together and began military training to fight back against their attackers.
“They wanted justice, you know? They wanted to go on the frontline for themselves and make sure that these perpetrators were held accountable for what they’d put them through. And just to have that strength and that resilience and to think ‘You know what? I’ve lived through a complete nightmare but I’ve come out the other end and I’m desperate for change’. It’s just…I don’t know how you get there.”
Listen back to the whole interview with Stacey Dooley on The Ray D’Arcy Show here.