The Raoul Wallenberg Institute together with the Network of Scholars on Gender, Sexuality and the Law (ALAS), Center For Human Rights i Pretoria and the Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law, invite activists, practitioners, scholars, and judges interested in gender equality and gender-based violence to submit individual abstracts for the upcoming conference titled, Global Transformation towards Gender Equality and Agenda 2030: A conversation about innovative approaches to break the cycle of violence against women.
The conference will take place in Mexico City 17-18 of September 2018. By promoting global and intersectional exchange and identifying the learning between countries and between sectors, the conference wants to create a platform for representatives from States, justice sector, civil society and academia. It will develop a substantive contribution towards the implementation of the gender equality component of the United Nations Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development by identifying approaches that can help deliver change.
“Gender Equality is both a right in itself as well as a precondition for sustainable development. It is a significant and pervasive obstacle for the advancement of human rights and the elimination of poverty, discrimination and abuse,” says RWI’s Head of Gender Equality, Sebnem Kenis, and elaborates upon its relevance:
The #metoo campaign has clearly demonstrated the magnitude of sexual abuse and violence against women and girls around the world, and the outcry for social change in its aftermath is a strong force to reckon with.
Read more about the conference here
Application process
Descarga la Invitación en Español
Proposals should be submitted by filling out the following form.
Submission deadline: April 8, 2018. Admitted proposals will be notified by May 7, 2018. Please note that panelists are responsible for their own travel expenses. The conference will be in English. Papers are welcome but not required. Papers will be submitted for publication to the Human Rights Brief at American University Washington College of Law.
The organizers will prioritize proposals that offer diverse and innovative perspectives focused on one of the following panel topics:
- Complexities of deciding cases of gender-based violence, including domestic violence. The organizers are particularly interested in proposals concerning innovative court practices, such as the creation of specialized courts to deal with gender-based violence or sex trafficking, or the use of GPS monitoring anklets, lethality-risk assessments, fatality review commissions, etc.;
- Litigating gender-based violence cases, including domestic violence;
- Analyzing the new concept of obstetric violence (this concept refers to the dehumanizing treatment and abusive medicalization of women’s bodies against their capacity to freely make decisions about their bodies and sexuality);
- Criminal law and justice for rape survivors (e.g., victim-friendly courts, use of closed-circuit technology, evidentiary rules and practices, etc.);
- The role of special courts for gender-based violence;
- Violence against girls, including underage marriage, sexual abuse at home, girls and pregnancy;
- Comprehensive access to reproductive services: contraception, abortion and maternal health;
- What do we know? Collecting data on violence against women;
- How to address gender bias in the courts (e.g., the role of Gender-Bias Task Forces, court monitoring NGOs in domestic violence cases, national and regional Gender Observatories, etc.).