On 10 May 2017 I had a pleasure to host Deng Adut as a speaker at the 64th Western Sydney University Open Forum. He spoke about: Why torture must be opposed unconditionally? His co-speaker was Prof. Michael Head.

Deng Adut is graduate of WSU Law School. He was born in a village in South Sudan. When he was 6 years old, he was taken away from his family and conscripted into the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. He was taught how to use an AK-47 and as a child soldier was send to battle.

After 5 years he was rescued by his brother john and smuggled into Kenyan refugee camp. He came to Australia as a refugee aged 14 where he taught himself to read, write and speak English, and went on to win a scholarship to study law in 2005.

By now at the age of 33 Deng works as a lawyer and spends much of his free time working with disenfranchised youth and refugees. Deng Adut become a well-known personality in 2015, when a short video about his life went viral – it has attracted more than 2.5 million views to date. Deng was recently named NSW Australian of the Year for 2017. He has published a book “Songs of a War Boy” in November 2016.

The Forum was filmed by Sky News and is available for streaming at http://www.a-pac.tv/video/