Participants and Contributors
WLDI "From Basic Needs to Basic Rights" Project
Rashida Abdullah ARROW, Malaysia
Dulcie Abraham Malaysian Women in Ministry, Malaysia Khadija Habashneh Abu Ali Palestine/Jordan Sunila Abeyesekera INFORM, Sri Lanka Gladys Acosta Vargas ILSA, Colombia Rani Advani Lawyer, India Mahnaz Afkhami Sisterhood is Global Institute, USA Salbiah Ahmad APWLD, Malaysia Theresa Akumadu Civil Liberties Organization, Nigeria Naila Najib Al-Rashdan General Federation of Jordanian Women, Jordan Cathi Albertyn CALS WITS University, South Africa Seetha Anagol Coordination Unit for Beijing ‘95, India Tasnim Azim Naripokkho, Bangladesh Amal Basha UNDP, Republic of Yemen Srilatha Batliwala National Institute of Advanced Studies, India Theo Bitature FIDA-Uganda, Uganda Rosa Briceno IWLD, Colombia/USA Charlotte Bunch Center for Women s Global Leadership, USA Florence Butegwa WiLDAF, Zimbabwe Barbara Cameron York University, Canada Nancie Caraway University of Hawaii, USA Roxanna Carrillo UNIFEM, USA Xiao Jiang Chen Shaanxi Women s Federation, China Susana Chiaroti Indeso-Mujer, Argentina Roberta Clarke CAFRA, Trinidad & Tobago Dorcas Coker-Appiah WiLDAF, Ghana Radhika Coomaraswamy Int'l Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka Rhonda Copelon IWHRLC, CUNY Law School, USA Lisa Crooms Howard University Law School, USA Shanthi Dairiam IWRAW Asia Pacific, Malaysia Maja Daruwala Ford Foundation, India Adriana de la Espriella PROFAMILIA, Colombia Mangalika de Silva Social Scientists Association, Sri Lanka Vasudha Dhagamwar MARG, India Elena Diaz FLACSO-Cuba, Cuba Nancy Duff Campbell National Women s Law Center, USA Alda Facio ILANUD, Costa Rica Virginia Feix Themis, Brazil Lynn Freedman Columbia University, USA Joan French Caribbean Policy Development Centre, Barbados Roshmi Goswami North-East Network, India Prema Govindasamy IWRAWAsia Pacific, Malaysia Ramani Gurusamy NGO Natl Coordination Unit for Beijing, Malaysia Shahla Hacri Boston University, Iran/USA Asma Abdel Halim WiLDAF, SudanAsma Abdel Halim WiLDAF, Sudan Zoya Hasan Jawaharlal Nehru University, India Sharon Hom CUNY Law School, USA Nasreen Huq Naripokkho, Bangladesh Shireen Huq Naripokkho, Bangladesh Deeana Jang Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation, USA Rani Jethmalani WARI.AW, India Irina Jurna Foreign Policy Association, Russia Janet Kabeberi-Macharia Women and Law/East Africa, Kenya Sultana Kamal Ain 0 Salish Kendra, Bangladesh Fayeeza Kathree University of the Western Cape, South Africa Nursyahbani Katjasungkana Women’s Solidarity for Human Rights, Indonesia Mary Kazunga YWCA, Zambia Ayesha Khan Journalist, Pakistan Rita Serena Kolibonso Jakarta Legal Aid Institute, Indonesia Winfrida Korosso Tanzania Women Lawyers Association, Tanzania Akua Kuenychia WiLDAF, Ghana Lucie Lamarche University du Quebec a Montreal Canada |
Mavivi Manzini Member of Parliament, South Africa
Leni Marin Family Violence Prevention Fund, USA Veronica Matus Madrid Comisidn Chilena de Derechos Humanos, Chile Nomtuse Mbere NGO Secretariat for Beijing, South Africa Sharon Mclvor Native Women s Association of Canada, Canada Meera Mitra WARLAW, India Valentine M. Moghadam United Nations University, USA/Finland Athaliah Molokomme University of Botswana, Botswana Julieta Montano Oftcina Juridica para la Mujer, Bolivia Meena Moorthy Shivdas APDC, Malaysia Irina Mouleshkova University of National and World Economics, Bulgaria Manouri Muttetuwegama Human Rights Committee, Sri Lanka Thilaha Nalliah ARROW, Malaysia Sameena Nazir IWLD, Pakistan Charlotte Ndome-Ekotto Assoc, de Lutte centre les Violences faites aux Femmes, Cameroon Hitty Norris WLD, USA Urszula Nowakowska Women’s Rights Center, Poland Pearl Nwashili STOPAIDS Organization, Nigeria Maureen O’Neil North South Institute, Canada Margaret Oguli-Oumo Ministry of Women in Development, Uganda Gladys Parentelli CEFLF, Venezuela Faustina Pereira Ain O Salish Kendra, Bangladesh Anna Pessoa Pinto Ministerio de Justicia, Mozambique Rosalind Petchesky IRRRAG, Hunter College, USA Jacqueline Pitanguy CEPIA, Brazil Maria Isabel Plata PROFAMILIA. Colombia Svetlana Polenina Russian Lawyer’s Union, Russia Rita Raj Hashim ARROW, Malaysia Darini Rajasingham Int’l Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka Arzu Rana-Deuba SAATHI, Nepal Niamh Reilly Center for Women’s Global Leadership, USA Remedios Rikken Center for Asia/Paciftc Women, Philippines Marcela Rodriguez Centro de la Mujer, Argentina Celina Romany CUNY Law School, USA Indai Lourdes Sajor Asian Women Human Rights Council. Philippines Shaheen Sardar Ali Peshawar University, Pakistan Margaret A. Schuler WLD, USA Gita Sen Indian Institute of Management, India Ilina Sen Rupantar, India Rebecca Sewall Development & Employment Policy Project, USA Farida Shaheed Shirkat Gah, Pakistan Sharon Shenhav NA AMA TJerusalem, Israel Jirina Siklova Charles University, Czech Republic Wendy Singh Caribbean Human Rights Network, Barbados Salma Sobhan Ain O Salish Kendra, Bangladesh Maheen Sultan Naripokkho, Bangladesh Anjana Suvarnananda Foundation for Women, Thailand Sharifah Tahir ICOMP, Malaysia Yasmin Tambiah IWLD, Sri Lanka/USA Kanokwan Tharawan Women’s Health Education Network, Thailand Dorothy Thomas Human Rights Watch, USA Evalyn Ursua Women’s Legal Bureau Inc., Philippines Roxana Vasquez CLADEM, Peru Sima Wali Refugee Women in Development, USA Everjoice Win WiLDAF, Zimbabwe Judy Lyons Wolf Georgetown University Law Center, USA Neta Ziv Association Jor Civil Rights in Israel, Israel Xiaoqiao Zou All China Women's Federation, China Cristina Zurutuza Centro de Estudios de la Mttjer, Argentina |
From Basic Needs to Basic Rights: Women's Claim to Human Rights
Part I: Gender and Hierarchy in Human Rights
Florence Butegwa: International Human Rights Law and Practice: Implications for Women
Maureen O'Neil Economic and Policy Trends: Global Challenges to Women's Rights
Part I: Gender and Hierarchy in Human Rights
Florence Butegwa: International Human Rights Law and Practice: Implications for Women
- Florence Butegwa, Regional Coordinator for Women, Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), is a leading human rights lawyer. She has played a key role in ensuring that the regional human rights agenda includes women's rights, and has been very active in the international human rights field.
- Dorothy Q. Thomas was Director of the Human Rights Watch/Women's Rights Project based in Washington D.C. She is the author of several reports and articles on international women's human rights, among which are Criminal Injustice: Violence Against Women in Brazil and Double Jeopardy: Police Abuse of Women in Pakistan
Maureen O'Neil Economic and Policy Trends: Global Challenges to Women's Rights
- Maureen O'Neil was a Partner at the Institute of Governance in Ottawa. She had held senior positions in the Canadian federal and provincial governments. Internationally she represented Canada on the UN Status of Women Commission.
- Lucie Lamarche was Professor of Law at the University of Quebec and author of a number of articles and reports on social and economic rights, including women's rights.
- Roberta Clarke, lawyer practicing in Port of Spain, had worked extensively on legal literacy and legal aid for women in the Caribbean and was associated with the Gender and Human Rights Program of the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA).
- Joan French was an activist in the women's movement and the teachers’ trade union movement. She worked on the issue of socio-economic development and is associated with the SISTREN Theatre Collective and CAFRA.
- Rani Jethmalani was an attorney at the Supreme Court of India. She was founding director of the organization Women’s Action Research and Legal Action for Women (WARLAW) in New Delhi. She has long been active in the field of women's rights, and was one of the earliest legal activists to focus on dowry deaths in India and bring cases before the Indian courts.
- Sharon Hom was Professor of Law at the City University of New York. Her work focusesd on international human rights and women's rights, and gender issues and law in the People's Republic of China. She has taught American legal methods and administrative law at several Chinese universities, and has written and spoken extensively on women, law and legal education in China
- Rebecca Sewall, was the founder of the Development and Employment Policy Project, an organization designed to raise awareness of gender-biased labor practices as an international development concern.
- Gladys Acosta Vargas was a lawyer and head of the program on Women and Power at the Instituto Latinoamericano de Servicios Legales Alternatives (ILSA) in Bogota. She was formerly at Flora Tristan in Lima, and is a long-time women's rights and human rights activist.
- Barbara Cameron taught public policy at York University, Toronto, where she was Assistant Professor of Political Science. Her research interests centered on women and public policy, particularly trade, employment and labor market policy. She has held research and policy positions with trade unions in Ontario, and works closely with the Canadian National Action Committee on the Status of Women.
- Lisa Crooms was Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Howard University Law School in Washington D.C. Formerly, she practiced employment and labor law in Oakland, California.
Part III: Religious, Cultural and Ethnic Identity & Human Rights
Radhika Coomaraswamy Diversity, Universality and the Enlightenment Project
Radhika Coomaraswamy Diversity, Universality and the Enlightenment Project
- Radhika Coomaraswamy was Director of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo, Sri Lanka and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. Her writings include a number of books and articles that focus on women, ethnicity and human rights; violence against women; women and the law; democratic traditions and conflict resolution.
- Mahnaz Afkhami was Executive Director of the Sisterhood is Global Institute and the Foundation for Iranian Studies, based in Bethesda, Maryland. She had been active in the women's movement, both in Iran and internationally, for a number of years. She founded the Association of University Women in Iran in 1968, and was Minister of State for Women's Affairs, 1976-1978.
- Darini Rajasingham was the Research and Project Coordinator at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka. She taught at Princeton University and the University of Birmingham. She is the author of a number of papers on ethnicity, colonialism and ethnic conflict.
- Asma Abdel Halim was a member of the Steering Committee of Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF). She practiced law in the Sudan and was a member of the Committee on the Status of Sudanese Women. She was active in the legal literacy programs of the Sudanese Women's Union before it was forcibly dissolved, and has spoken widely on women's rights and human rights in the Sudan.
- Sharon Mclvor was a lawyer and the Justice Coordinator of the Native Women's Association of Canada worked extensively for native women's empowerment in Canada. She is a member of the Lower Nicola Indian Band, Merritt, British Columbia.
- Sima Wall was President and CEO of Refugee Women in Development (RefWID) Inc., an international organization supporting refugee and displaced women's organizational development efforts, based in Washington D.C. She serves on the boards and advisory committees of several refugee and women's national and international organizations, and has received awards for leadership in the field of refugee women in development.
- Farida Shaheed, a sociologist working at Shirkat Gah, a women's resource center in Karachi and Lahore that integrates research, development and advocacy, was a founding member of the national women's lobby, Women's Action Forum, and is one of the coordinators of the international network, Women Living Under Muslim Laws.
- Jirina Siklova promoted human rights in Czechoslovakia under communism. She was a participant in Prague Spring, a signer of Charter '77, and a dissident who was imprisoned. She is a sociologist and chair of the Department of Social Work at Charles University in Prague.
Part IV: Sexual and Reproductive Rights
Rhonda Copelon Rosalind Petchesky Toward an Interdependent Approach to Reproductive and Sexual Rights as Human Rights: Reflections on the ICPD and Beyond
Rhonda Copelon Rosalind Petchesky Toward an Interdependent Approach to Reproductive and Sexual Rights as Human Rights: Reflections on the ICPD and Beyond
- Rosalind Pollack Petchesky was Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York as well as International Coordinator of the International Reproductive Rights Research Action Group (IRRRAG). She was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
- Rhonda Copelon was Professor of Law at the City University of New York and Co-Director of CUNY’s International Women's Human Rights Law Clinic. She has been a consultant to the Inter- American Institute of Human Rights and as well as the United Nations Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Delinquency (ILANUD). She has been very active in the international women's reproductive rights movement.
- Yasmin Tambiah was a Senior Program Associate at the Women, Law and Development. She was a researcher at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo, and taught in the Women’s Studies Program at Yale University. She also authored papers on violence against women and female sexuality, and was working on her doctoral dissertation which focuses on the organization of sexuality in medieval Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities.
- Gita Sen was Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Management. Bangalore, and Adjunct Professor in Development Economics at Harvard University. A founding member of DAWN, Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era, she was widely known for her work on women and development and her policy research on environment, health and population.
- Maria Isabel Plata, a lawyer and Deputy Director of PROFAMILIA in Bogota, had conducted research on the law and the status of Colombian women, domestic violence and human rights.
- Adriana de la Espriella provided legal services for women at PROFAMILLA, an NGO which deals mainly with reproductive health matters, in Bogota. She had worked as a private attorney and at the office for Youth, Women and the Family at the Presidency of Colombia.
- Pearl Nwashili was the founder and Executive Director of STOPAIDS Organization in Lagos and a member of the National AIDS Committee of Nigeria. She had developed educational programs on HIV/AIDS and STDs for grassroots women and other populations .
- Nasreen Huq was a nutritionist and a member of Naripokkho, an organization focusing on advocacy for women's rights and development in Bangladesh. She was very active in the area of women's rights and health, and has participated in several national and international fora on women's health.
- Tasneem Azim, an immunologist and also a member of Naripokkho, was active in the area of women's health and empowerment and has worked extensively at the national and international levels.
- Laura Queralt was a feminist psychologist who worked in the Women, Gender and Justice Program at ILANUD in Costa Rica. She has also worked at the National Television Channel producing one-minute spots on women’s rights.
- Alda Facio, a feminist jurist and writer was the Director of the Women, Gender and Justice Program of the United Nations Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Delinquency (ILANUD). Her recent book describes an original methodology for the incorporation of gender analysis into legal texts and contexts.
Part IV: Activism to Advance Women's Human Rights
Sunila Abcyesekera Organizing for Peace in the Midst of War: Experiences of Women in Sri Lanka
Sunila Abcyesekera Organizing for Peace in the Midst of War: Experiences of Women in Sri Lanka
- Sunila Abeyesekera was a political activist with a focus on women. A trained actress and singer, she is committed to using theater and music as a means to organizing within social movements. She is a founder member of several women's groups, including the Women's Media Forum and INFORM, a human rights documentation group, and has been active in the Sri Lanka lobby group at the UN Human Rights Commission
- Veronica Matus Madrid was the lawyer in charge of the women's program of the Chilean Commission on Human Rights. She had been active in the human rights movement in Chile since the 1973 coup, working with women whose family members had disappeared.
- Irina Jurna was Press Secretary of the Foreign Policy Association and the director of its Women's Center. She was also co-director of the Association of Women Journalists in Russia and editor-in- chief of Vestnik, a magazine that was published by the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 1991, and thereafter by the Foreign Policy Association. She was also editor of the newsletter Women's Movement in Russia.
- Leni Marin was the Senior Program Specialist at the Family Violence Prevention Fund in San Francisco. She coordinated the Fund's Battered Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Rights Project, and played an active role in realizing the landmark Violence Against Women Act. An immigrant to the US from the Philippines, she had been an advocate for the rights of battered women for over ten years.
- Deeana Jang was an attorney at the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, California and staff attorney at the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation. She co-edited Domestic Violence in Immigrant and Refugee Communities: Asserting the Rights of Battered Women, and has authored several articles on immigrant women and domestic violence.
- Indai Lourdes Sajor was the coordinator of the Asian Women's Human Rights Council (AWHRC) and the Asia-Pacific Women’s Action Network (APWAN). She had worked with Filipino Comfort Women who filed a class action suit against the Japanese government. She was a political prisoner during the martial law years of the Marcos regime in the Philippines.
- Akua Kuenvehia was a Senior Lecturer in Law at die University of Ghana. She had worked extensively on women's issues in Ghana and in Africa in general and authored several articles on women's rights issues and the law. She is a founding member of WiLDAF, and a member of its Steering Committee.
- Charlotte Bunch was Director and founder of the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University, New Jersey. An activist in the women’s and civil rights movements for over two decades, she worked on global feminism with a variety of organizations since the 1980s. She has edited seven anthologies and authored Demanding Accountability: The Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal for Women s Human Rights.
- Niamh Reilly coordinated the Global Tribunal on Violation of Women's Human Rights (Vienna, 1993) and was responsible for the international campaigns at the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University, where she is a Senior Program Associate.
- Celina Romany was Professor of Law, and former Co-Director of the Women's International Human Rights Program at City University of New York Law School. She has written extensively about feminist theory, human rights, international law, critical race theory and labor and employment law. She is also a representative of the American Association of Jurists at the United Nations.