Divisor mitad

MAHNAZ AFKHAMI is former Minister for Women’s Affairs and the former Secretary- General of the Women’s Organization of Iran. She founded the University Women’s Association in Iran. Currently, she is the founder and President of the Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP) and Executive Director of the Foundation for Iranian Studies (FIS). She helped create the concept and mobilize support for the establishment of the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW). Among her publications are: Women and the Law in Iran; Muslim Women and the Politics of Participation;

In the Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-revolutionary Iran; Faith and Freedom: Women’s Human Rights in the Muslim World; and Women in Exile. She serves on the boards of Freer and Sackler

Galleries and the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, among others. GABRIELLA BOROVSKY is a Political Participation Policy Specialist at UN Women. She previously served as a Social and Gender Specialist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and in various roles with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) in North and West Africa. She holds a MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA in Political Science from Ramapo College of New Jersey.

JULIE BALLINGTON is UN Women’s Global Policy Advisor on Political Participation. She has worked extensively on women’s participation in politics and elections as Gender and Elections Advisor at UNDP, at the Inter-Parliamentary Union where she led the Gender Sensitive Parliaments project, at International IDEA where she initiated the global project on Electoral Quotas for Women, and at the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) where she worked on gender-sensitive electoral administration in southern Africa. She holds a MA in political science from University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, and a BA in political science and philosophy from Auckland University, New Zealand.

ELIZABETH SALGUERO CARILLO was a parliamentarian in Bolivia, President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Bolivia and President of the Human Rights Commission (2006-2009). She is the former Minister of Culture and Tourism (2011) and served as an Ambassador of Bolivia in the Federal Republic of Germany (2012-2015). She currently works at UN Women Bolivia as a project advisor. She has a BA in Social Communication and Journalism from the National University of Córdoba-Argentina, with a Master’s Degree in Regional Planning from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany.

EKATERINA DORODNYKH has an extensive professional experience working with the United Nations both in HQs (Rome, New York) and in field (Caribbean region), and with academia. She worked in policy development, socio-economic analysis and food security

analysis. She holds advanced Degree in International Economics, two master's degrees in Economics and in Food Security Policies, a PhD in Finance, and a degree in International Development.

PALOMA DURÁN is Director of the Sustainable Development Goals Fund. She has extensive professional experience in government and international organizations. She acted as the Vice-Chair of the UN Commission for Social Development during her time as Counsellor of Human Rights in the Permanent Mission of Spain to the UN. Prior to that, she worked as Chef de Cabinet for the Social Affairs Secretariat and as Vice-President of the Women’s Institute of Spain. She has served on the EU’s Equality Committee and the Council of Europe’s Expert Group on Affirmative Action, and worked with civil society in Nigeria, Guatemala, Peru, the Philippines and elsewhere. She holds PhDs in Law, Canon Law and Political Science.

SLYVIA CHIRAWU was recently appointed as a judge of the High Court of Zimbabwe. She practiced for eight years before joining Women and Law in Southern Africa Research and Education Trust as the National Director of the Zimbabwe office. She has taught family law and the law of succession at the University of Zimbabwe since 2003.

SANIYE GÜLSER CORAT is the Director of the Division for Gender Equality in the Office of the Director-General at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France. Before joining UNESCO in September 2004, she pursued a diversified career as an academic at Carleton University in Canada and a senior international development advisor to several international organizations, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the Canadian International Agency and the International Research Development Centre, planning, managing, monitoring, evaluating projects and programmes in areas ranging from education, social and economic development, institutional strengthening, gender equality, technology transfer to local governance and climate change in over 30 countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. She also has private sector experience as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of an international development consulting company in Canada for almost 10 years.

RANGITA DE SILVA DE ALWIS is the Associate Dean of International Affairs at University of Pennsylvania Law School where she teaches International Women’s Human Rights: Women Peace and Security. She is visiting faculty at Hong Kong University Law School. She is also a Global Advisor to the UN Sustainable Development Goals Fund. Previously, she served as the inaugural director of the Global Women’s Leadership Initiative and the Women in Public Service Project launched by Secretary Hillary Clinton and the Seven Sisters Colleges at Wellesley College. She has advised several UN entities, governments and institutions on gender- based law reform and policy making efforts around the world and written widely on violence against women and gender equality. She has a LL.M and S.J.D. from Harvard Law School.

HALEH ESFANDIARI is the former and founding Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, is a Public Policy Fellow at the Wilson Center. She has had a rich and varied career. In her native Iran, she was a journalist, served as deputy secretary general of the Women’s Organization of Iran, and was the deputy director of a cultural foundation where she was responsible for the activities of several museums and art and cultural centers. She taught Persian language at Oxford University and, prior to coming to the Wilson Center, from 1980 to 1994, she taught Persian language, contemporary Persian literature, and courses on the women’s movement in Iran at Princeton University. Dr. Esfandiari was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from 1995 to 1996.

FARANHAZ ISPAHANI is the author of the recently released book (Harper-Collins, India) Purifying The Land of The Pure: Pakistan’s Religious Minorities. A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012. She returned to Pakistan with Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 after opposing the Musharraf dictatorship in the preceding years. In Parliament, she focused on the issues of terrorism, human rights, gender-based violence, minority rights and US-Pakistan relations. The most notable pieces of legislation enacted with her active support include those relating to Women’s Harassment in the Workplace and Acid Crimes and Control, which made disfiguring of women by throwing acid at them a major crime. She was also a member of the Women’s caucus in the 13th _{National Assembly. The caucus, which}

straddled political divides, was instrumental in introducing more legislation on women’s issues than has ever been done before during a single parliamentary term. In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington, DC where she worked on Women and Extremist groups with a particular focus on the women of ISIS. Ispahani was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center from 2013-2014. FATIMA SBAITY-KASSEM is founder and former director at the Centre for Women, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in Beirut, Lebanon. She holds PhD in Political Science from Columbia University. She is a researcher, editor and author of reports and articles on women in Arab countries. Her latest academic book Party Politics, Religion and Women’s Leadership: Lebanon in Comparative Perspective (New York: Palgrave Macmillan) is used in graduate courses in women and gender studies. It was updated, revised, and translated into Arabic in 2015.

BEGOÑA LASAGABASTER is UN Women’s Leadership and Governance Section Chief, overseeing the Entity’s Leadership and Political Participation, Human Rights, Women’s Access to Justice, Governance and National Planning and Gender Equality and HIV/AIDS work. A former Member of the Spanish Parliament (1996-2008), delegate to the Conference of the Institutions Specialized in European Community Issues and Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC), she has practiced law and served as expert on regional and justice committees in the European Parliament. She holds a Law degree from the University of Salamanca and Diploma in European Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.

XIAONAN LIU is a professor at the Institute for Human Rights and the Director of the Constitutionalism Research Institute at China University of Political Science and Law. Xiaonan teaches about anti-discrimination law, gender and human rights, and jurisprudence at CUPL. Xiaonan has also conducted research and coordinated on cooperative projects on equality and nondiscrimination with International Labor Organization, Yale Law School China Law Center, and other foreign universities. She was also the team leader on a number of research projects that focused on gender equality and the condition of legal education in China. Xiaonan holds an LL.M from Yale Law School, as well as an LL.B., Master of Law and Ph.D. from Jilin University School of Law.

ANN ELIZABETH MAYER is Associate Professor Emeritus of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She earned a PhD in History from the University of Michigan, a Certificate in Islamic and Comparative Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research includes law in contemporary Middle Eastern and North African countries and international human rights law. She has published extensively in journals and edited collections, and her book Islam and Human Rights is in its fifth edition.

AISHA MUHAMMED-OYEBODE is a human rights activist and advisor on social impact with a deep expertise in Africa related women and girls’ initiatives. She founded and serves as CEO of the Murtala Muhammed Foundation (MMF), a non-governmental organization dedicated to socio-economic change on the African continent and at the forefront of advising on the humanitarian response and reconstruction of North East Nigeria devastated by the Boko Haram insurgency. Aisha is a co-convener of the Bring Back Our Girls and is currently studying for her PhD in Law with a focus on gender violence in conflict at the University of London.

SARAH PAOLETTI directs the Transnational Legal Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania, the law school’s international human rights and immigration clinic. Students enrolled in the clinic represent individual and organizational clients in a myriad of cases and projects that require them to grapple with international and comparative legal norms in settings that cut across borders, legal systems, cultures, and languages. Paoletti’s research focuses on the intersection of human rights, migration, and labor law, and she has presented on this theme before the United Nations and the Organization of American States. She also works closely with advocates seeking application of international human rights norms in the United States. Her recent scholarship includes: “Transnational Approaches to Transnational Exploitation: A Proposal for Bi-National Migrant Rights Clinics,” 30University of Pennsylvania Journal of

International Law 1171 (Summer 2009), and “Redefining Human Rights Lawyering Through

the Lens of Critical Theory: Lessons for Pedagogy and Practice,” 18 Georgetown Journal of

JACQUELINE PITANGUY held a Cabinet position as President of the National Council for Women’s Rights. She was a professor at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and held the Laurie New Jersey Chair in Women’s Studies. She is founder and Executive Director of CEPIA, a leading feminist NGO in Brazil. Jacqueline is member of the Inter-American Dialogue, of WLP’s Board and was a member of the International Human Rights Council, coordinated by President Carter, as well as of the Brazil Fund for Human Rights.

HEATHER SWADLEY is a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in disability politics and public law. Prior to beginning her PhD, Heather worked for a Member of Parliament in the UK House of Commons, as well as for a London health policy public affairs agency. She also was responsible for implementing a national mental health campaign in the Labour Party. She holds MSc degrees from the London School of Economics and Political Science and SOAS, University of London and has published on questions concerning disability in democratic theory.

MAITHREE WICKRAMASINGHE is a Professor in the Department of English and was the founding Director of the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. She is also a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER), University of Sussex, UK, and other Sri Lankan universities. Her work spans a number of subjects/disciplines as evinced by her numerous publications which include

Towards Gender Equity/Equality: A Scan of Gender Sensitive Laws, Policies and Programs (2012)

and Feminist Research Methodology – Making Meanings of Meaning Making (2010). An expert on gender, she is a scholar whose work interfaces research, teaching/training, policy/strategy development, advocacy and activism.