Redressing the Balance: CEDAW Report Launch
Are you working to improve health outcomes for women and their families? Interested in how human rights law can support better health for women experiencing vulnerability, whether as a result of gender-based violence, poverty, migration status, or gender or sexual identity? Keen to understand how the UN’s women’s rights body makes recommendations to governments globally, and how they respond?
The George Institute for Global Health and the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW Sydney invite you to the report launch of 'Redressing the balance: Using human rights law to improve health for women everywhere' on Wednesday 15 February 2023 at 6:30pm (Central European Time).
The launch will be a hybrid event held in-person in Geneva and virtually on Zoom.
'Redressing the balance' provides an in-depth look at how the UN CEDAW Committee influences the introduction and reform of laws for women experiencing intersectional discrimination, presenting key lessons about what has worked and providing a critical resource for those demanding gender equality.
We will hear from the report's author, Dr. Janani Shanthosh, who is a Research Fellow at The George Institute and the Academic Lead of the Health and Human Rights Program at the Australian Human Rights Institute.
Dr. Shanthosh will be joined by an expert panel:
- Prof. Rangita de Silva de Alwis, Member-elect of the UN CEDAW Committee
- Dr. Jeni Klugman, Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution
- Priyanthi Fernando, Executive Director of the International Women’s Rights Action Watch – Asia Pacific
Speakers
Dr. Janani Shanthosh
Dr. Janani Shanthosh is a Research Fellow at The George Institute and the Academic Lead of the Health and Human Rights Program at the Australian Human Rights Institute. At The George Institute, she leads two research streams within their Centre for Health Systems Science: realizing women’s health rights, and NCDs and the law. This work aims to develop empirical research tools that policy makers and researchers can use to evaluate law and inform legislative reform. Janani’s research interests include monitoring state responses to rights violations in women and girls, and co-producing model public health laws alongside governments and communities to create healthier societies. At the Australian Human Rights Institute, Janani works toward the progressive realization of human rights at a national, regional and global level by improving the generation and translation of evidence about the linkages between human rights and health outcomes.
Prof. Rangita de Silva de Alwis
Prof. Rangita de Silva de Alwis is member-elect to the expert committee on the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) for the term 2023-2026. She is faculty at University of Pennsylvania Law School. She is also the Hillary Rodham Clinton Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. She recieved her S.J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Dr. Jeni Klugman
Dr. Jeni Klugman is a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution. She has over 30 years of experience in international development, and a record of successful innovation and strategic leadership of major initiatives. She was previously the managing director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security; Director of Gender and Development with the World Bank Group; fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School; an adviser on women’s economic empowerment with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and a Co-leading Thinker for the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation in Australia. Jeni has a Doctorate in Economics from the Australian National University and a Master of Science in Development Economics and a Bachelor of Civil Law (Honours) from University of Oxford where she was a Rhodes Scholar.
Priyanthi Fernando
Priyanthi Fernando is the Executive Director of the International Women’s Rights Action Watch – Asia Pacific. She has a Masters Degree in Mass Communications from the University of Leicester and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. A social development and communications professional with over 30 years of experience both in Sri Lanka and overseas, she has worked in the areas of technology, infrastructure and poverty. She has worked in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Yemen, the UK and Australia and has led several organisations: the Centre for Poverty Analysis, an independent Sri Lankan think tank; the International Forum for Rural Transport and Development, a specialist global network and the Sri Lanka country programme of Intermediate Technology Development Group (now called Practical Action), the Sri Lankan arm of an international NGO. Priyanthi has long been passionate about issues of justice and about fighting structural inequalities relating to gender, access to technology, poverty and livelihoods.
Emma Feeny: Moderator
Emma Feeny is Global Director of Impact & Engagement at The George Institute for Global Health, where she leads a programme of activities including advocacy, policy engagement and thought leadership to help increase the impact of the institute’s health and medical research.
Emma is a Senior Visiting Fellow at United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH), and co-chairs the NCD Lab on Women and Girls with the World Health Organization. She also co-chairs the NCD Alliance Supporters’ Group, and is a former co-chair of the Taskforce on Women and NCDs.
Before joining The George Institute in 2017, Emma worked as a global policy and advocacy advisor at Oxfam, and held policy and communications roles at the University of Oxford, the World Food Programme and elsewhere. A former journalist, she has an MA in the Social Anthropology of Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
