WU Stands Against Gender-Based Violence 2025

Professor Emeritus EDWINA PIO (New Zealand) talks
about “The enigma of silence: Toxic violence and
migrant women of colour”

Nov. 21, 2025, 6–7pm
This is an online event!
Please access the event via Zoom
using the following information:
MEETING ID: 640 4021 5836
PASSCODE: 506296

Join us for an inspiring talk by one of the leading voices in the field
Professor Emeritus EDWINA PIO, Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) awarded by
King Charles III for service to ethnic communities, recipient of the Te Rangi Hiroa Medal, Duke of
Edinburgh Fellowship, and Fulbright alumna, is New Zealand’s first Professor of Diversity. Associate
Fellow at Oxford University, she teaches Demystifying Diversity for Cambridge and researches
intersections of faith, migration, and ageing globally.

The enigma of silence: Toxic violence and migrant women of colour
Intersectional inequality, migration, gender, ageing – loaded words which encompass awe,
exotic beauty, and unthinkable violence. In the fissures and cracks of our lives are we bystanders?
Or are we upstanders, nudging the system to create courageous everyday solutions? My pedigree
as a woman scholar of colour cum activist through my research and writing seeks to dismantle the
unthinkable toxicity that permeates the life of many migrant women of colour. In the silences that
exist with cowering grandmas – yes elder abuse, and beloved partners or wives whose
blackened eyes and missing teeth are hidden between fear of further retribution and vulnerability
of being a migrant – silence which enslaves and yet protects. How can we, beloved audience,
provide hope and action within this enigma of silence? This is the gauntlet that we must pick up
to move beyond bland neutrality to a stance that is receptive, assertive, gracious and
audacious – a journey which softly but surely vanquishes the enigma of silence.