 |
 |
| afghanistan | brazil | cameroon | egypt | india | indonesia | iran | jordan | lebanon | |
| malaysia | mauritania | morocco | nicaragua | nigeria | palestine | turkey | uzbekistan | zimbabwe |
English
Clash or Consensus? Gender and Human Security in a Globalized World: Speakers
Speaker Biographies
Mahnaz Afkhami (Iran/USA) is Founder and President of Women's Learning Partnership, Executive Director of the Foundation for Iranian Studies, and former Minister of State for Women's Affairs in Iran. She serves on advisory boards for a number of organizations including the International League for Human Rights, Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, and World Movement for Democracy. Her numerous publications include manuals on human rights education for Muslim women, eliminating violence against women, and participatory leadership that have been translated into 12 languages and are being used throughout Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Amneh Badran (Palestine) is Director of the Jerusalem Center for Women (JCW), a non-governmental organization committed to the protection of human rights, the advancement of women's rights, and the realization of Middle East peace based on justice. JCW works in partnership with the Israeli women's organization Bat Shalom toward sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Ms. Badran supervises projects and activities that focus on conflict resolution, coalition building, human rights, and nonviolent resistance. Ms. Badran formerly worked for the Palestinian Federation of Women Action Committees.
Zainab Bangura (Sierra Leone) is the Chair and Co-founder of the Movement for Progress, a political party that seeks to promote good governance, integrity, and the empowerment of women, youth, and the disabled in Sierra Leone. She is also the Cofounder and Coordinator of Campaign for Good Governance, Sierra Leone's largest indigenous NGO, which promotes democratic participation, human rights, the rule of law, and the economic and political emancipation of women. Ms. Bangura is a 2003-2004 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy.
Charlotte Bunch (USA) is Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership. Her publications include the Center's reports on the UN Beijing Plus 5 Review process in 2000 and the World Conference Against Racism in 2001. She is on the Advisory Committee for the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, the Board of the International Council on Human Rights Policy, and the Advisory Council for the Ethical Globalization Initiative. Ms. Bunch is a Distinguished Professor in the Women's and Gender Studies Department at Rutgers University.
Nadereh Chamlou (Iran) is Senior Advisor at the World Bank's Middle East and North Africa Region for Knowledge and Economic and Sector Work. In this capacity she leads the Bank's MENA Region gender agenda and advises on the Bank's policy and advisory work. In her 22 years with the World Bank, she has worked in technical and managerial positions in such areas as economic management, private sector development, financial sector development, oil and gas, telecom, power, infrastructure, environment, accounting and auditing, corporate governance, and the knowledge economy.
Marian Wright Edelman (USA) is Founder and President of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF). The first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she formerly directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office, served as counsel for the Poor People's March that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began organizing before his death, and directed the Center for Law and Education at Harvard University. Mrs. Edelman founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm that is the parent body of CDF. Her many awards and honors include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings.
Carl Gershman (USA) is President of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), where he has presided over the development of grants programs in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Latin America. Under his leadership, NED created the quarterly Journal of Democracy in 1990, the International Forum for Democratic Studies in 1994, and launched the World Movement for Democracy in 1999. Mr. Gershman was formerly Senior Counselor to the U.S. Representative to the UN, a Resident Scholar at Freedom House, and Executive Director of Social Democrats, USA.
Najma Heptulla (India) is the Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, India's Upper House of Parliament and Honorary President of the Inter-Parliamentary Council. She was formerly President of the Executive Committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and has been a member of the Coordinating Committee of the IPU Meeting of Women Parliamentarians since 1993. Mrs. Heptulla is the Founder and President of the Parliamentarians' Forum for Human Development, sponsored by UNDP, and a Distinguished Human Development Ambassador for UNDP. She is President of the Azad Foundation for Research and Development and of the Indo-Arab Society.
Noeleen Heyzer (Singapore) is Executive Director of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) where she serves as the UN's chief advocate for gender mainstreaming within the institution and internationally. She is the former head of the Gender and Development Programme in the Asian and Pacific Development Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Founding Member of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era, a network of women leaders. She has lectured and published extensively, most recently on the subject of women and the process of globalization.
Swanee Hunt (USA) is Founder and Chair of Women Waging Peace, an initiative of Hunt Alternatives Fund, a private foundation advancing innovative and inclusive approaches to social change at local, national, and global levels. She is Director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where she teaches. Former U.S. Ambassador to Austria (1993-97), she is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, has authored numerous articles, and writes a weekly nationally syndicated column. Her book, This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace, will be published by Duke University Press in 2004.
Attiya Inayatullah (Pakistan) is a member of the Pakistani Parliament, a UNESCO Executive Board member, and Advisor to the Family Planning Association of Pakistan. Her former positions include Advisor to the President of Pakistan for Population Welfare and Women's Affairs, Minister of State, member of Pakistan's National Security Council, Minister for Women's Development, Social Welfare and Special Education, and Chairperson of UNESCO. She was formerly the Chairperson of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Azza Karam (Egypt) is Director of the Women's Program at the World Conference of Religions for Peace International Secretariat in New York, where she works to build a global network of religious women's organizations and mainstream their leadership in all areas of development and peace building. Dr. Karam is President of the Committee of Religious NGOs at the UN. She was formerly Program Manager at the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict, where she facilitated conflict and reconstruction trainings in Lebanon, Yemen, Uzbekistan and Northern Ireland. Her books include Transnational Political Islam and Women in War and Peace-Building, both forthcoming.
Asma Khader (Jordan) is Coordinator of Sisterhood Is Global Institute/Jordan and former President of the Jordanian Women's Union. She is a member of the Arab Lawyer's Union, the Arab Organization for Human Rights, and the Executive Committee of the International Commission of Jurists. Ms. Khader was instrumental in creating a Legal Literacy/Legal Assistance program for Jordanian women. Elected to the Permanent Arab Court as Counsel on violence against women, she is a leading advocate of the campaign to strengthen legislation outlawing honor killing.
Frances Kissling (USA) is President of Catholics for a Free Choice, which works to advance reproductive health, women's rights, and the strengthening of civil society through research, education, and policy analysis. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, and Ibis Reproductive Health. She is a Founder of The Global Fund for Women. Ms. Kissling speaks and consults frequently on issues of religion, reproductive health, women's rights, and population policy. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, London Guardian, and international newspapers.
Afaf Mahfouz (Egypt) is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist serving patients of diverse social, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds and Chair of the Committee of the UN International Psychoanalytical Association. Dr. Mahfouz is Past President of the Conference of Nongovernmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the UN and previously taught law at Helwan University in Cairo. She was a member of the facilitating committee of the NGO forum at the Fourth International Conference on Women in Beijing, and a key organizer of other regional and international NGO forums including the Millennium NGO Forum in New York in 2000.
Gay McDougall (USA) is Executive Director of International Human Rights Law Group, an international nonprofit organization engaged in human rights advocacy, litigation, and training. In 1994, Ms. McDougall served as a member of South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission that ran the first non-racial elections in that country. From 1997-2001 she served on the UN treaty body that overseas implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. She is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for her work on behalf of international human rights.
Mishka Mojabber Mourani (Lebanon) is Senior Vice President of International College in Beirut, Lebanon, one of the largest international schools in the world. A member of the supervisory board of the Center for Research in Training and Development of Machreq/Maghreb Gender Linking Information Project, she is involved in developing and running educational leadership training programs and facilitating leadership training workshops. She has worked as an educator and educational consultant to establish schools, develop curriculum, and train staff in numerous countries in the Middle East and Africa. She currently teaches a course in educational management at the American University of Beirut.
Azar Nafisi (Iran) is Visiting Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and Founder and Director of The Dialogue Project. A Professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature, Dr. Nafisi taught at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and Allameh Tabatabaii before coming to the United States. She has lectured and written extensively on the political implications of literature and culture and on the human rights of Iranian women. She is author of Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.
Kumi Naidoo (South Africa) is Secretary General of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. Dr. Naidoo was previously Executive Director of the South African NGO Coalition and of the National Literacy Cooperation of South Africa, and Director of the Independent Electoral Commission and South African Committee for Higher Education Trust. He was active in South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle and has worked variously as a researcher, journalist, university lecturer, and youth counselor. He has published and spoken widely on issues relating to civil society, education, and resistance to apartheid.
Kathleen Peratis (USA) is an employment discrimination lawyer in New York. She is on the Board of Human Rights Watch and is Chair of its Women's Rights Division Advisory Committee. She has been President of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Woman's Rights Project, and Vice President in North America of the New Israel Fund. She conducted research in Russia, Bosnia and Jordan on a broad range of issues concerning violence against women. She writes, speaks, and teaches on various issues of women's rights, human rights, and women in Judaism.
Jacqueline Pitanguy (Brazil), sociologist and political scientist, is Founder and Director of Cidadania, Estudo, Pesquisa, Informação e Ação, an NGO that coordinates research on gender issues and facilitates advocacy and education on violence against women and reproductive health. She is Executive Director of the Civil Society Forum in the Americas and President of the Board of The Global Fund for Women. She formerly held a cabinet position as President of the National Council for Women's Rights. She serves on a number of international boards including UNESCO's Institute for Education and the Carter Center's International Human Rights Council, and on the editorial board of several health journals.
Kavita Ramdas (India/USA) is President and CEO of The Global Fund for Women. She was formerly a Program Officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where she worked on issues of U.S. poverty and economic development and international population issues. Ms. Ramdas serves on the Boards of the Rural Development Institute, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Mt. Holyoke College, and Women's Edge. She was a member of the Committee on Women and Development, an Advisory Board Member of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and a Trustee of the General Service Foundation.
Aruna Rao (India) is Director of Gender at Work, a knowledge and capacity building network focused on gender and institutional change. She serves as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of CIVICUS and as a Commissioner of the Commission on Globalization. She was formerly President of the Association for Women's Rights in Development, coordinated a Population Council research program in Asia on gender issues in rural development, and led a team that pioneered a new approach to gender and organizational change in Bangladesh. She consults widely on gender, development, and organizational change issues. Her publications include Gender at Work: Organizational Change for Equality.
Mary Robinson (Ireland) is Executive Director of the Ethical Globalization Initiative. She served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002 and as President of Ireland from 1990-1997. She is a Founder Member and incoming Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders. Before her election as President, Mrs. Robinson served as Senator, holding that office for 20 years. In 1969 she became Reid Professor of Constitutional Law at Trinity College, Dublin and now serves as Chancellor of Dublin University. She was called to the bar in 1967, becoming a Senior Counsel in 1980, and a member of the English Bar (Middle Temple) in 1973.
Indai Sajor (Philippines), a Rockefeller Humanities Fellow, is Executive Director of the Asian Center for Women's Human Rights. Ms. Sajor previously served as co-convener of the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery, a landmark initiative that recognized sexual slavery as a crime against humanity under international law and humanitarian law. She has published a number of articles and books related to women's rights in situations of war and armed conflict, including Facing Global Capital, Finding Human Security: A Gendered Critique.
Nasreen Mustafa Sideek (Iraq), a native of Iraqi Kurdistan, is Minister of Municipalities and Public Works. Previously, she served as Minister of Reconstruction and Development in the Kurdistan Regional Government. Following the Gulf War, Ms. Sideek fled toward Turkey and Iran along with over a million Kurdish refugees. Upon returning to Iraq she worked with the International Organization for Migration and with the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs in assisting refugees and coordinating relief services. She was a member of the Economy and Infrastructure Working Group of the U.S. State Department's "Future of Iraq" reconstruction project.
Madhavi Sunder (USA) is Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law, where she teaches and writes in the area of law and culture, globalization, women's human rights, and intellectual property. Ms. Sunder serves as an organizing committee member of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities. She was formerly a clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals and a litigation associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York. Her recent publications include "Piercing the Veil," Yale Law Journal 112 (2003) and "Cultural Dissent," Stanford Law Review 54 (2001).
Zenebeworke Tadesse (Ethiopia), a development specialist from Ethiopia, is a Founding Member of the Association of African Women for Research and Development. Former Deputy Director of the Council for the Development of Social Sciences in Africa, she presently serves as a member and Editor of the Management Committee of the Forum for Social Studies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She is a member of the Board of the African Gender Institute located at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Ms. Tadesse has worked extensively on issues of gender and social policy with various UN agencies as well as with development groups and NGOs throughout Africa.
Mervat Tallawy (Egypt) is UN Under Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). She was previously Secretary-General of the National Council for Women in Egypt and Deputy Director of the UN Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW). Ms. Tallawy's career in foreign affairs and public service includes having served as Minister for Insurance and Social Affairs, Ambassador of Egypt to Japan, and Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Sakena Yacoobi (Afghanistan), a teacher trainer and educator, is Founder and President of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), an Afghan women's NGO. Using inclusive, culturally sensitive principles of community engagement, AIL's programs provide teacher training, health education, school support, women's leadership and human rights training, and literacy programs for Afghan women and girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Professor Yacoobi has directed the training of over 8,000 female Afghan teachers. She is Vice-President of Creating Hope International, a Michigan-based non-profit organization.