Joining the Dots: International Conversations on Violence Against Women
Hosted and convened by Prof Purna Sen, and following on from last year’s series, we are pleased to announce the programme for series two of Joining the Dots: International Conversations on Violence Against Women.
The series addresses common themes in the area of violence against women and girls- including efforts to silence survivors and mechanisms/ behaviors that protect perpetrators. The series centers the experiences of activists, survivors and practitioners working across the globe to end violence against women.This Autumn, from Oct-Dec 2022 we will hear from speakers from; Malaysia, India, the Republic of Korea, Romania and Australia.
Webinar 1: Organising Against Sexual Abuse in Education, Tuesday 27th September at 12pm (UK time)
Efforts to uncover and seek accountability for sexual abuse in education have been powerfully led by women and girls in schools and universities. How have they organised in and around these institutions? What have they been able to shift and for whom? We hear about efforts in India and Australia in this webinar, with Chanel Contos who led the teach us consent campaign in Australia and Anagha Pradeep who is a student activist against sexual harassment on a Dehli campus.
Webinar 2: Human Rights and Violence Against Women, Monday 10th October at 13.00pm (UK time)
The potential of the human rights framework (philosophy as well as mechanisms) for work on prevention and accountability for violence against women isn’t always well understood. The language can be alienating, the procedures confusing and the potential unclear. In many ways activists and practitioners in the global south have led engagement efforts and have much to offer. This discussion will explore how the theory and practice of human rights have shaped key work, what the potential benefits can be and what more can be done fully to mine human rights to improve the landscape for ending violence against women
Gudrun Jonnsdottir is the retired Spokeswoman for Stigamót the Icelandic Counselling Centre on sexual violence in Reykjavik and a feminist activist who has for three decades been working with survivors of rape, incest, prostitution and trafficking. Audre Lee works with International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific Roberta Clarke joins us from Trinidad and Tobago and is Commissioner at Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Webinar 3: Sexual Aggression and the United Nations, Monday 24th October at 15.00pm (UK time)
The United Nations is the birthplace of human rights treaties and holds States to account on their efforts to deliver these. But what happens when sexual abuse happens within the United Nations or in its name, for example by UN peacekeepers? We hear from a journalist who exposed sexual exploitation, a UN staffer who brought a sexual harassment case and a former UN staffer who has spoken about the commonality of problems of power inequalities across these abuses, institutional cultural change and poor internal systems of justice.
This webinar will speak to the themes explored in the 2022 BBC documentary, The Whistleblowers: inside the UN.
With:Chaired by Dr Fiona Vera-Gray with Purna Sen and Martina Brostrom
Webinar 4: Disability and Violence Against Women, Monday 7th November at 09.00am (UK time)
Sex inequalities impact all women, with comparatively lesser power vested in them to control their lives, movements and how they are perceived, across space and time. Power and control lie at the heart of violence against them and is all the more complex when women are living with disabilities. Over sexualisation, de-sexualisation, expectations of gratitude for any sexual ‘attention’ – these can be the framing for sexual abuse. Women with disabilities themselves are accused of betraying their communities if/when they denounce their abusers with disabilities, and women with invisible disabilities may be seen as unreliable in their recounting of abuse. Human rights activists, arts and cultural specialists will discuss violence against women with disabilities.
with Ana Peleaz Narvaez (Spain), Pratima Gurung (Nepal) and vice-chair of the CRPD Committee Miyeon Kim (Republic of Korea)
Sadly this session was cancelled, but will hopefully be rescheduled.
Webinar 5: Conflict and Violence Against Women, Monday 21st November at 09.00am (UK time)
Speakers have been involved in support for survivors or accountability of abusers associated with armed conflict – related to Ukraine and Sierra Leone. What worked, what could be improved? How well have victim-survivors been served by the processes they have worked in or on? Is sexual violence and sex trafficking inevitable in and around armed conflict? How can we change that, if at all.
Shyamala Alagendra Khan (Malaysia) Ioana Sandescu (Romania)
Webinar 6: Organising Against Violence Against Women In Afghanistan and Iran, Monday 6th February, at 15.00pm( UK time)
Widespread international concern and expressions of solidarity have met the contemporary uprising of women in Iran against state and citizen imposed strictures and violence against women. The trampling of women’s rights and rampant violence against women in Afghanistan provided the rationale – at least in part – for Western intervention in that country but appeared less than a priority when those same parties left.
Meaningful international solidarity can be built only with time spent understanding struggles and recognising both the specificities and the commonalities in our challenges as well as our hopes.
Please join us to hear from – and talk to:
Roya Boroumand of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Centre for Human Rights in Iran ; Zubaida Akbar of Freedom Now and Karima Bennoune of the University of Michigan
Series 2: Review, Monday 27th February at 12.30pm (UK time) Register now
This year’s series has been rich and lively – join us to talk and reflect on the sessions and all that we learnt.
We began series 2 with a discussion on sexual abuse in education and followed by exploring human rights and violence against women, sexual aggression in and around the United Nations, armed conflict and violence against women and women organising in Afghanistan and Iran. We heard from speakers about many countries including Australia, India, Barbados, Malaysia, Iran, Afghanistan, Romania and Iceland.
We will close the series with a chance to discuss what was covered, what we learnt from the speakers and just reflect.
If you participated in the series or listened to a recording please join us and contribute to this review and work out how we might be able to take our learnings forward.