Jasvinder Sanghera is an activist and advocate for women's rights who was born in Derby. She is the co-founder of Karma Nirvana, a community-based project where several refuge centres across the United Kingdom serve as safe-housing for South Asian women fleeing forced marriages.[1] When faced with the prospect of a forced marriage herself, she ran away from home,[1] and she tells her story in her novel Shame, published by Hodder and Stoughton and those of other British victims in her second novel Daughters of Shame.[2]
Sanghera's debut novel, Shame, is one where anecdotes are drawn from her own personal experiences where, when she was fourteen, was shown a photo of the man chosen to be her husband. She depicts a harrowing tale of violence, abuse and ostracism but ultimately, triumph over adversity. She appeared on The Jeremy Kyle Show in 2008 to discuss her experiences on the topic of forced marriages and she is now in her 40s, happily married and with three children, Lisa, Maria and Joshua. Due to her experiences with the stringent laws enforced upon daughters growing up, she ensures her own daughters have enough freedom and restrictions are not superfluous and thus allows them to date, experiment and find their own husbands.