A Catalyst for Change: The extraordinary Anaka Women’s Collective during the June 2026 Belfast Pogrom

Abstract

Prompted by the pogrom that erupted in Belfast in June this year, this article explores how a women’s collective, Anaka, established by female asylum seekers, refugees and migrants (ASRMs) less than a decade previously, took the lead in ensuring the safety and welfare of the city’s migrant communities in a context where they were horrifically failed by police and politicians, by the state and the institutions meant to protect them. Anaka began as a small-scale endeavour to mitigate the difficulties confronting women struggling to navigate a harsh asylum system. It became a widely respected advocacy and campaigning group for ASRMs. Anaka built a network of alliances throughout the city, winning trust and respect everywhere. A previous Social Encounters’ article argued that: ‘Of service to its own and the wider community, the ways in which Anaka promotes integration provides a powerful model of community cohesion and unity that contains the potential significantly to ameliorate traditional sectarian divides and reduce racism, building a better Belfast for all’ (Kirby,2024). The present article illustrates the prescience of those words