Elizabeth Bessie Watson
ACTIVIST (1900 - 1992)
Bessie Watson, at the age of 9, was asked to
march and play the pipes at a procession
celebrating what women have and will
achieve, in Edinburgh on 9th October 1909,
marching down Princes Street before
gathering for a rally led by Emmeline
Pankhurst at Waverley Market. This ignited
the young Bessie's interest in women's rights
and she continued to be actively involved in
the Suffragette movement, wearing hair
ribbons in the colours of the Suffragette
campaign to school. Bessie played the pipes
on the platform of Waverley Station as trains
departed taking convicted women's rights
campaigners to Holloway Prison, and piped
outside Calton Jail to encourage the
Suffragettes imprisoned there. In 2019 a
plaque was unveiled at St Andrew's House in
Bessie's honour.
Nudia Murad
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER (1993 - present)
The Islamic State attacked Nadia Murad's
village when she was 19, killing 600 men
including her family members. Murad and
other women were taken prisoner and
subjected to beatings and rape. Murad
escaped after three months of absue from
ISIS, she fled to Germany where she started
to use her story to educate people. In 2016
the UN appointed Murad the first Goodwill
Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of
Human Trafficking. In 2018 Nadia Murad
became the first Iraqi to be awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for her refusal to, "accept the
social codes that require women to remain
silent and ashamed of the abuses which they
have been subjected."
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