Jasvinder Sanghera

Jasvinder Sanghera was born and brought up in Derby, England. A survivor of forced marriage, she is the founder of Karma Nirvana, a national award-winning charity that supports both men and women affected by honor-based abuse and forced marriages.

She is a highly acclaimed international speaker and an expert advisor to the courts in matters of child, civil and criminal proceedings and was instrumental in ensuring that all UK police forces are required to improve their understanding of honor-based abuse and forced marriage by inspections conducted by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Her memoir Shame was a Times Top 10 Bestseller. Jasvinder is recognized as bringing the issue of forced marriage into the public domain and Prime Minister David Cameron stated that her work ‘turned my head on the issue of forced marriage’. Her work is recognized as being pivotal to the creation of a specific UK forced marriage criminal offense in 2014.

Jasvinder has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Woman of the Year 2007. She was made an Honorary Doctor of the University of Derby in 2008. She was awarded The Pride of Britain Award in 2009 and was named Cosmopolitan Ultimate Woman of the Year in 2010. In 2011, she was listed in the Guardian’s top 100 Most Inspirational Women in the World and in 2012 received the Global Punjabi Award. She was awarded Commander of the British Empire in 2013 in recognition of her outstanding contribution for the victims of forced marriage and honor-based abuse and in 2014 was awarded Legal Campaigner of the Year. Jasvinder is also listed as an entry in the 2016 edition of the book Who’s Who and in the same year received the International Woman Award for human rights from the Italian media. In 2018 she was awarded Honorary Doctor of Law by De Montfort University, Leicester and Woman of the Year by Leeds City Council and in 2019 she was awarded the Robert Burns Humanitarian of the Year Award and also the Sikh Woman of Substance Award.

Jasvinder is noted as being a profoundly moving speaker who speaks with conviction, clarity, and knowledge.