Resisting DWP Violence (EP1)
Deaths by Welfare Podcast
Campaigners have been telling us for years that welfare reforms kill people. This is a story of disabled people and people impacted by the welfare system, joining forces with bereaved families to bear witness to and protest the deadly welfare policies enacted by the Department for Work and Pensions (the DWP). Through their collective genius and creativity, these campaigners push the boundaries of how we imagine and practice resistance, to re-envision justice both within and beyond the State.
In this episode, we bring together Dolly Sen, Paula Peters and Ellen Clifford to talk about evidence, resistance and justice in their experiences of living and organising against the harms of welfare reform. The discussion was held after a screening of Dolly Sen’s new film “Broken Hearts for the DWP” – documenting a symbolic protest to remember those who have not survived the cuts.
Content warning: suicide, criminalisation and incarceration
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Video with BSL interpretation and live captions:
The Deaths by Welfare Podcast is part of our wider investigation into deaths linked to welfare reform and the violence of state austerity. The knowledge and leadership of disabled people fighting fatal reforms is central to this work, and this podcast aims to bring some of these voices together to understand how policies designed in the name of ‘welfare’ can create the conditions for people’s deaths.
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Intro music and sound design by Rosemary Moss, with audio testimonies from Vince Laws, and the ‘Right to Record’ action group, collected by Hannah Kemp-Welch.
BSL interpretation by Sumayya Si-Tayeb.
Produced and edited by Healing Justice Ldn.