Podcasts
In Unfiltered we have honest discussions about issues that impact the lives of those forcibly displaced and possible solutions from a range of perspectives.

The Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies brings you a new podcast series called Unfiltered.
On this podcast we will have honest unfiltered discussions about issues that impact the lives of those forcibly displaced and possible solutions from a range of perspectives. We bring you interviews from around the world — engaging voices from the field, refugees, researchers, academics, practitioners, and other stakeholders to share interesting perspectives and discussions on forced displacement.
Through Unfiltered, we aim to provide a platform to empower and amplify refugee voices around the globe and raise awareness about the situations for forcibly displaced people.
This is the podcast you should be listening to if you care about human suffering and how to reduce it. We are going to be talking about humanitarian crises, displacement, the causes of conflict, how we respond to them, the politics of these situations and the policies that shape them.
Unfiltered can also be found on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Episodes
- Episode 11 - Noor Azizah on advocating for the plight of Rohingya refugees
- Episode 10 - Apajok Biar on being a refugee youth in global forums
- Episode 9 - Deborah Henry on using her platform as Miss Universe Malaysia to advocate for access to education for refugees
- Episode 8 - Abdul Aziz Muhmat on fleeing Sudan and being detained
- Episode 7 - James Milner on refugee participation and the governance of the refugee regime
- Episode 6 - Farah Abdi on being an LGBTQI+ refugee of colour
- Episode 5 - Basma Alawee on shifting narratives
- Episode 4 - Bahati Kanyamanza on advocating for refugee systems change
- Episode 3 - Professor Jane McAdam on mobility in the context of climate change and disasters
- Episode 2 - Rana Ahmed on freedom of religion and women’s rights
- Episode 1 - Behrouz Boochani on identity, persecution, and detention
About the host
Rez Gardi is an international lawyer and human rights activist. She was born in a refugee camp in Pakistan as her family escaped Saddam Hussein’s genocidal campaign against the Kurds. She graduated as a Fulbright Scholar with a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School becoming the first Kurd in history to graduate from Harvard Law.
Rez has a wealth of experience advocating for the rights of refugee at global fora. She founded ‘Empower’ — a youth and refugee-led organisation addressing the under-representation of refugees in higher education and represented New Zealand in the first ever Global Refugee Youth Consultations in Geneva.
She was one of the founding members of the Global Youth Advisory Council to the UNHCR. She contributed to the Global Summit of Refugees in 2018, which led to the establishment the Global Refugee-led Network. In 2020 she helped established the Refugee Steering Group for the UNHCR Annual Tripartite Consultations on Resettlement. She worked in Iraq as a Harvard Human Rights Fellow building cases for the prosecution of ISIS regarding their targeted genocidal campaign against the Yezidis.
Rez Gardi is a co-founder of the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies, an Adjunct Research Fellow at University of Auckland, and the Co-Managing Director for Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table (R-SEAT).