UK human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy is to chair the UK’s nascent Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA).
CIISA has been in the works since 2022, with the aim of making practical interventions to bring about change in the creative industries. It grew out of the Time’s Up UK movement, which was founded in 2018 by Heather Rabbatts and Barbara Broccoli.
Rabbatts was CIISA’s founding chair, and will now move into a patron role.
It is a government supported, cross-industry backed authority for addressing poor workplace behaviour across the UK creative industries, and aims to launch by the end of 2024. Jen Smith is currently CIISA’s interim chair.
“A high proportion of those working in the arts and in other cultural fields are self-employed and especially vulnerable to abusive and exploitative conduct,” said Kennedy. “A carefully-wrought framework is essential to create fair and respectful treatment for everyone in these working environments.
”I also think the CIISA could provide a template for other sectors where such problems are also rife. This will be the ‘go-to’ body for anyone experiencing misconduct. I am looking forward to chairing the Board and helping in its establishment.”
Kennedy was made a member of the House of Lords in 1997, and has built her career as a formidable champion for law reform for women, particularly relating to sexual and domestic violence, and developed the defence of post-traumatic stress disorder in the UK courts. She is recognised internationally as a legal authority on violence against women and children, and her career achievements include leading the equality and human rights commission inquiry in Scotland addressing human trafficking and leading the recent Scottish parliamentary inquiry into misogyny.
In 2021, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Kennedy helped evacuate 102 women judges and prosecutors who were on death lists by raising the funds, securing safe houses, chartering planes and resettling the women around the world. With husbands and children, in total 508 people were brought to safety. She is currently working in Ukraine gathering evidence on war crimes and on the recovery of thousands of children who have been abducted from Ukraine by Russian forces.
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