Speakers

Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh (Iran) is a journalist and film-maker, and founder and director of the NGO Training Centre (NGOTC), an organization that mobilized and trained women's groups throughout Iran. She was an active member of the Stop Stoning Forever campaign, the Iranian Women's Charter movement, and Meydan (Women's Field). She was editor-in-chief of Farzaneh Women's Studies Journal and served as director of the Association of Women Writers and Journalists. She has contributed regularly to the journals Sharg and Zanan (Women).

Mahnaz Afkhami (Iran/USA) is founder and president of Women's Learning Partnership, executive director of Foundation for Iranian Studies, and former Minister for Women's Affairs in Iran. She serves on advisory boards of several organizations including the International Museum of Women and Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. Her numerous publications, which include Faith and Freedom: Women's Human Rights in the Muslim World and Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women, have been widely translated and distributed internationally.

Zainah Anwar (Malaysia) is project director of Musawah and former executive director of Sisters in Islam (SIS). She was formerly a member of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, a chief programme officer for the political division at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, and a senior analyst at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies. She was a political and diplomatic writer for The New Straits Times in Kuala Lumpur. Her book, Islamic Revivalism in Malaysia: Dakwah Among the Students, is a standard reference in the study of Islam in Malaysia.

Karima Bennoune (Algeria/USA), is professor of Law at Rutgers University. She is on the board of trustees of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Council of the Network of Women Living Under Muslim Laws. Her articles are published in many leading academic journals, including the American Journal of International Law, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, and European Journal of International Law. She has served as a consultant on human rights issues for the International Council on Human Rights Policy, Soros Foundation, and Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.

Marian Wright Edelman (USA) is founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund. The first black woman to be admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she served as counsel for the Poor People's March in 1968 that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began organizing before his death. She serves on the boards of several institutions, including the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. In 2000, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award. She is the author of several books including The Measure of Our Success and Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors.

Yakin Ertürk (Turkey) is professor of Sociology and chair of the Gender and Women's Studies Program at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. During her tenure at the United Nations, she served as director of the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), then as director of The Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), and most recently as the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. She has written and lectured extensively on identity politics, conflict and violence against women.

Anne Gahongayire (Rwanda) is secretary general of the Supreme Court of Rwanda, former secretary general of the Ministry for Gender and Family Promotion, and head of the Women's Leadership Caucus. She also served as coordinator of the Forum for African Women Educators and was responsible for coordinating and facilitating women's empowerment programs as commissioner of Women's Affairs with the Rwandese Patriotic Front. She is chairperson of the board of the Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer at Kigali Institute of Science and Technology.

Pregs Govender (South Africa) is deputy chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission and former Member of Parliament. She pioneered South Africa's Women's Budget in 1994 and chaired Parliament's Joint Monitoring Committee on the Status of Women. During the struggle against apartheid, she joined the trade union movement where she served as National Educator of the clothing and textile union, before heading South Africa's first Workers College to develop worker leadership. She is the author of Love and Courage: A Story of Insubordination.

Asma Khader (Jordan) is general coordinator of Sisterhood Is Global Institute/Jordan, secretary general of the Jordanian National Commission for Women, and former Minister of Culture. She is also founder of Mizan: The Law Group for Human Rights and the Jordanian Children's Parliament, and a founding member of the Arab Association for Human Rights. She serves on the executive committee of the International Commission of Jurists and steering committee of the World Movement for Democracy. In 2003 she received UNDP's Poverty Eradication Award in the Arab states.

Azar Nafisi (Iran/USA) is executive director of Cultural Conversations at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, where she is a professor of aesthetics, culture and literature, and teaches courses on the relation between culture and politics. She has also taught at Oxford University, University of Tehran, Free Islamic University, and Allameh Tabatabai, focusing on the political implications of literature and culture and on the human rights of women and girls. She is the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran.

Thoraya Ahmed Obaid (Saudi Arabia) is executive director of the United Nations Population Fund and a UN under-secretary general. She also serves as chair of the High-level Committee on Management of the UN System, the principal inter-agency body for coordinating management matters. She was previously director of UNFPA's Division for Arab States and Europe and deputy executive secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. A recipient of numerous awards, in 2004 Forbes named her among the world's 50 most powerful Arab women.

Jacqueline Pitanguy (Brazil) is founder and director of Cidadania, Estudo, Pesquisa, Informação e Ação (Cepia) and former president of the National Council for Women's Rights. She serves on the boards of international organizations including Inter-American Dialogue, Society for International Development, and Carter Center's International Human Rights Council. She is on the editorial board of several health journals and has published numerous articles and co-authored four books. She has been awarded the Medal of Rio Branco, the highest decoration of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Eleanor Smeal (USA) is founder and president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and former president of the National Organization for Women, where she led the drive to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, the largest nationwide grassroots and lobbying campaign in the history of the modern US women's movement. On the frontlines of the fight for women's equality, she has campaigned to close the wage gap and to achieve pay equity for the vast majority of American women who are segregated in low-paying jobs. She is author of How and Why Women Will Elect the Next President.

Chairs

LaShawn Jefferson (USA) is a program officer in the Ford Foundation, where she works to promote policies and practices that respect women's human rights, with a particular focus on the economic rights and economic participation of low-income women and women of color. Previously she served as executive director of the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. She is the author of numerous reports on a variety of issues confronting women around the world, and her op-eds have appeared in The Wall Street Journal and The International Herald Tribune.

Frances Kissling (USA) is former president of Catholics for a Free Choice and a visiting scholar at University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics. She is a weekly columnist covering religion, reproduction and politics for Salon.com and co-author of Rosie: The Investigation of a Wrongful Death. She serves on advisory boards of the Journal of Feminist Ethics and the Women's Bioethics Project. As consultant to International Planned Parenthood Federation, she conducts values clarification workshops for health professionals working on reproductive health in Latin America.

Carolyn Long (USA) is director of Global Partnerships at InterAction where she represents the coalition in networks for reform of development and aid policies. Her previous work centered on strengthening operational programs and advocacy initiatives of NGOs in the US and sub-Saharan Africa. She has written extensively on the role of civil society in development and is the author of Participation of the Poor in Development Initiatives: Taking Their Rightful Place. She worked for many years in the anti-apartheid movement and was a long-time board member of Africa Action.

Regan Ralph (USA), is founding executive director of The Fund for Global Human Rights and former vice president for health and reproductive rights at National Women's Law Center, where she led policy and educational strategies to promote the quality and availability of health care for American women. From 1992-2001, she helped build and then led the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, where she developed campaigns to ensure prosecution of sexual violence in conflict as a war crime and to secure recognition of gender-based persecution as grounds for asylum.

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