My name is Jane and I join you today from Women for Refugee Women.

Women for Refugee Women is a charity that supports women who are seeking safety in the UK from war, persecution, gender-based violence and other torture. Women like me.

We are marching today for our sisters all over the world. Our sisters who are forced to flee their countries and to leave everything behind, so they can be safe.

Our sisters who have come to the UK seeking safety, but are instead demonised by the media, harmed by the UK asylum process, and used as political fodder.

We are marching because discrimination and violence against women is happening all over the world. To us, our friends, our sisters, our daughters and our mothers. It is an epidemic. An emergency. A tragedy.

For women like me, we had to leave our countries because we were unsafe. Our lives were at risk. Why? Because we are women. We are treated as second class citizens.

Girls are banned from receiving education. Forced into marriages when they are still children. Forced into sexual exploitation. Banned from employment. Trapped in abusive relationships. Cut off from the public sphere.

We are angry. We are sad. We are appalled. And you should be too.

Yet in the UK, women who are seeking safety are often treated as second class citizens too.

We are not free, until ALL women are free.

Our feminism MUST include refugee and asylum-seeking women like me.

Repeat after me: Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here!

Thank you.