Mary W - pioneering feminist, and her radical legacy

Mary W - uncompromising free spirit, champion of women's rights, pioneer of girls' right to education, headstrong challenger of the men who did all they could to suppress her striving for female equality, long forgotten but rediscovered with awe and delight in our generation …

Mary Wollstonecraft? Certainly.

But our Mary W is another. Born in 1585, six generations earlier. Mary Ward, doughty Yorkshirewoman, aged only 24, seeing that schools were almost only for boys, teamed up with a group of like-minded young women to open free schools for girls. All very laudable? On the contrary! The men in power in England hounded her from the country because her religion was different from theirs. In Catholic Flanders, her vision of women undertaking practical work in the community clashed with the insistence that she and her companions, being religious women, should never set foot outside a convent.

Which did not stop Mary from sticking to her guns. She founded schools for girls from Liège and Cologne to Vienna and Bratislava, and with drama as part of her curriculum, she put girls on stage at a time when Shakespeare feared to do so. When a man challenged Mary's empowerment of women, she declared unequivocally "There is no such difference between men and women that women may not do great things."

Convinced that the Pope must, surely, support such a self-evidently noble venture if she could only tell him about it face to face, Mary boldly set out across a Europe in the throes of the Thirty Years' War, and over the Alps in the depths of winter, arriving in Rome at Easter 1622. But Pope Urban VIII was as opposed to an order with a woman in charge as his cardinals, and Mary was imprisoned and branded a heretic.

Mary Ward faced poverty, illness (she suffered from gallstones), insults and prison, yet never wavered in her determination to advance the cause of girls' education across Europe. Stubborn? Yes. But, ahead of her time, she led by trust, love, and - good humour. She wrote, "In our calling, a cheerful mind, a good understanding, and a great desire after virtue are necessary, but of all three a cheerful mind is the most so."

Mary's cheerfulness inspired extraordinary loyalty in her followers, to whom she had the humility to delegate responsibility. And it helped her triumph in the end. For this spirit of cheerful confidence, along with the commitment to practical work in the community, continues in the Mary Ward houses in Europe and across the world today.

Not least in Sister Imelda Poole MBE, 78 years old, human rights activist, and member of the Mary Ward institute known as the IBVM.

Like Mary Ward, Imelda found herself called to serve in difficult and sometimes dangerous situations. After four decades of serving some of the most deprived communities in the UK, and in her late 50's, she felt called to promote the safety and welfare of women and young people in Albania, a country with a particularly unlucky post-war history and a fearsomely difficult language.

Based in impoverished areas, Imelda's mission works with young people who lack educational and life chances, and who are too often victims of sexual abuse, gang-related violence, and manipulation by people-traffickers posing as boyfriends. For this work she was recently honoured with a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Liverpool Hope University.

Imelda has faced some dangerous moments. Waiting alone on a park bench, trusting that the criminals she had contacted to beg for the return of a trafficked girl's passport would actually deliver it, and not instead beat her up as a warning …

Heartbreak is frequent, emergencies common, burnout a constant threat. Once she was called to help a destitute Albanian asylum seeker about to be deported from the UK, even though the girl, suffering from malnutrition and a leg injury, needed a place of safety outside Albania. Imelda made calls to contacts in the UK, and the girl was treated in a UK hospital. But Imelda was then contacted by the girl in a desperate state, waiting to be deported from Heathrow. Again Imelda intervened, providing time to discover lost relatives and, finally, a safe shelter in this time of crisis.

Albania is emphatically not a safe country for sex-trafficked women to return to. They face stigma, violence, revictimisation, and often destitution. One girl rang Imelda in tears to tell her that she had been rejected by her own mother, who told her that her presence brought disgrace on her family in their small village.

But Imelda has witnessed acts of immense courage too. One survivor, rescued in the UK, resolved to denounce her Albanian traffickers to the police. The criminals threatened to kill her brother if she did not back down, but she stood firm. However, the police failed to protect the brother, and the gang murdered him. Imelda helped to arrange a safe, secret journey for the woman to attend her brother's funeral. She then returned to the UK where she continued with the campaign against the traffickers, who were arrested and convicted.

Working at grassroots in communities in home countries is crucial in the prevention of human trafficking and modern slavery. Mary Ward Loreto, co-founded by Imelda, provides education and promotes social cohesion and local economic development, strengthens communities and offers young people opportunities in Albania, helping them to avoid the lure of the traffickers. Tragically, global estimates reveal almost 50 million people are victim of modern slavery and human trafficking. In 2023 over 3,100 Albanian potential victims of human trafficking were identified in the UK. The support of victims, especially for women and children, are complex. Mary Ward Loreto has developed an expert network of partners to support victims of human trafficking in Albania or on their return from a destination country. Often in the face of adversity, or even at risk of personal threat, Imelda has remained committed and determined to protect and support some of the most vulnerable who have been 'traded as a commodity' by despicable criminal gangs.

In recent months a new dimension has entered the work of MWL. Albania is now a country of origin, transit and destination. It is growing in international status and is confronted by a significant number of migrants, including Afghan refugees, who have been trafficked into the country. "Refugees arrive distressed and vulnerable," says Sr Imelda. "Many have been duped on their journeys, their documents changed along the way. Some are in shock and look worn out and ill from their weary and disturbing experience. Their stories can be truly shocking. MWL helps them to access the services they need to be safe and begin to rebuild their lives. Lawyers, psychologists, medics and social workers, employed by MWL, are ready to support them on their journey to recovery, justice and freedom. Some of them will move on to third countries, others will stay here at least for the present, but in either case they need advice and support from MWL and other networking agencies."

An unbroken thread runs between Mary Ward's mission in the 17th century and Imelda Poole's work in Albania, almost 400 years on. The central strand is their vision of the unique worth of every single human soul, regardless of gender, their commitment to help each individual to fulfil their potential and be the person they were born to be. And they draw strength from a faith that is joyful, confident, not lost in dogma but rooted in addressing the pressing, practical needs of people they see around them.

Sydney Thorne is the author of Mary Ward: First Sister of Feminism.
Kevin Hyland, OBE, was the UK's first Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner

LINKS

Bar Convent: https://barconvent.co.uk/
Sign the petition: https://barconvent.co.uk/events/sign-the-petition-marywardforsaint/