Date: Thursday 11 December 2014
Time: 6.30-8pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Professor Fareda Banda, Téa Braun, Jane Gordon, Gisela Robles Aguilar
Chair: Professor Christine Chinkin

Update Monday 8 December 2014, 10.29am: Due to unforeseen circumstances, Saraswathi Menon is no longer able to participate in this event. Gisela Robles Aguilar will now speak on the panel.

66 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated that everyone is entitled to the same fundamental rights and freedoms without distinction, our panel will discuss the ongoing struggle for the realisation of women’s human rights worldwide.

There have been significant advances in the international legal framework for the protection of women’s rights over recent decades, but to what extent has this institutional progress translated into positive impact on women’s daily lives in real terms?

Drawing on their varied and considerable expertise, our panel will explore this question from a number of thematic perspectives:

2014 saw an ambitious global summit with the aim of ending sexual violence in armed conflict. So what progress has been made in holding perpetrators to account?

Domestic violence is outlawed in 125 countries, yet over 70% of perpetrators experience no legal sanction. A staggering 603 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not a crime. Is domestic violence still a ‘private’ matter or does the state have obligations to tackle violence against women?

The target date for fulfilment of the Millenium Development Goals is 2015. Does this matter and what role do the human rights of women and girls have in the post-2015 development agenda?

81 countries have laws that criminalise consensual sexual conduct between adults of the same sex. What does this say about lesbian rights and the freedom to express sexual identity without distinction?

In discussion with each other and the audience, the panel will consider what progress we have made towards achieving substantive equality – equality not just on the statute book, but in real terms - and look beyond, to consider the need for transformative equality to ensure that women and girls worldwide have the choices and opportunities to claim their fundamental rights and freedoms without distinction.

Fareda Banda is Professor of Law at SOAS, University of London.

Téa Braun is Legal Director of the Human Dignity Trust, which provides technical legal assistance in international human rights and comparative constitutional law to people seeking to use the courts to challenge laws that criminalise sexual minorities.

Jane Gordon is a human rights lawyer and co-founder and director of Sisters For Change, an international non-profit working to end violence against women and girls. Between October 2013 and April 2014, Jane served as gender advisor/ sexual and gender based violence investigator with the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria.

Gisela Robles Aguilar is a Research Officer at the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford.

Christine Chinkin is Professor of International Law at LSE, member of Matrix Chambers and member of the Kosovo Human Rights Advisory Panel constituted by UNMIK.

The Centre for the Study of Human Rights at LSE (@LSEHumanRights) is a trans-disciplinary centre of excellence for international academic research, teaching and critical scholarship on human rights.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEwomensrights

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