This is the story of a 6 year old girl who was left to look after her younger brother and sister while her migrant parents worked every day and most of the night.

This is the story of Mirujaa, eldest daughter of Sri Lankan refugees whose single minded goal was to succeed in their new country while paying back their families "back home".

This is the story of how the burden of the desperate and the dispossessed is passed onto the next generation. And how it is lifted.

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You know as well as I do that stories about migrants don’t attract big sponsors.
Governments are hostile, corporations stay cautious, and even NGOs hang on to their tightening budgets.

That's why we need your help. Migrant Odyssey exists — to make sure those voices are still heard.

If you’ve ever felt that empathy without action isn’t enough, this is one real way to make a difference. Even a small monthly contribution — one you’ll hardly notice — helps keep these voices alive.

A sandstorm birth, a village donkey named Kajol, and a gun barrel to the head during the Khartoum Massacre—Ethar’s story pulls you straight into Sudan’s living history and insistently asks a hard question: 70 years of warfare has changed nothing, so where does real change begin?

We open with a clear, human overview of Sudan’s long arc of coups, civil wars, Darfur’s horrors, and the power struggle between the SAF and RSF, then step into a home where a Ministry of Justice mother and a communist father model how to disagree politically while being totally aligned morally and ethically. That paradox becomes a compass as Ethar learns to push back—against assumptions, about her religion, her beliefs, her capabilities and her country.

As Ethar, reminds us, the wars in Sudan were never for the people - but for power. And her stories in this episode have people at their core - her family, her neighbour who rescued her from a mob, her friend who saved her life. And Ethar herself, who insists that change only comes when ordinary people's daily lives are tangibly changed for the better. Village by village, town by town, person by person.

Please help support the show: by sharing with your network; by making a small contribution and by sending us feedback.

Send us a text

Support the show

You know as well as I do that stories about migrants don’t attract big sponsors.
Governments are hostile, corporations stay cautious, and even NGOs hang on to their tightening budgets.

That's why we need your help. Migrant Odyssey exists — to make sure those voices are still heard.

If you’ve ever felt that empathy without action isn’t enough, this is one real way to make a difference. Even a small monthly contribution — one you’ll hardly notice — helps keep these voices alive.

Stephen Barden talks to Ruchira Gupta, lifelong activist against human trafficking - especially the trafficking of women. This extraordinary woman not only founded a global organization to protect and educate sexually trafficked women and their daughters but, through her work with the United Nations, has driven changes in global laws on human trafficking and drawn up rules of behaviour for the peacekeepers themselves.

In this episode we hear how she started on her campaign decades ago when she was covering a story in Nepal and discovered there were no girls in village after village. Her question "Where are all the girls", set her on a path that she's following to this day.

Send us a text

Support the show

You know as well as I do that stories about migrants don’t attract big sponsors.
Governments are hostile, corporations stay cautious, and even NGOs hang on to their tightening budgets.

That's why we need your help. Migrant Odyssey exists — to make sure those voices are still heard.

If you’ve ever felt that empathy without action isn’t enough, this is one real way to make a difference. Even a small monthly contribution — one you’ll hardly notice — helps keep these voices alive.