Sadeqa Siddiqui

I interviewed Sadeqa Siddiqui at the offices of the South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC) in Montreal. Siddiqui moved from Pakistan to Canada in the late 1960s with her family. In the early 1980s she got a job with the newly-formed SAWCC, and at the time of the interview she was the organization’s executive director. Her work with SAWCC has included many different facets of supporting immigrant and racialized women in Montreal, including working against economic dependence, providing services, and opposing violence. She has engaged in both behind-the-scenes lobbying and more publically visible demonstrating to demand changes to things like immigration and welfare regimes, and has worked with the women’s movements in Quebec and in Canada to push them to become more responsive to the needs of immigrant and racialized women. The interview with Siddiqui forms, along with the interview done with Shree Mulay, the heart of Chapter 3 of Gender and Sexuality: Canadian History Through the Stories of Activists.

Material from Siddiqui on this site:

• In this audio clip, Siddiqui talks about the work that she and others involved in SAWCC did to create space for their organization and their politics, as immigrant and racialized women, in the mainstream Quebec women’s movement.

  [audio:siddiqui_ffq.mp3]



• In this audio clip, Siddiqui talks about the role played by herself and by SAWCC in the 1995 Bread and Roses March, the 1996 Women’s March Against Poverty, and the 2000 World March of Women.

  [audio:siddiqui_marches.mp3]