What Have We Changed Now? (and why are we here?)

The Forum is now over, but we encourage you to check the "Latest News" section of this site for selected session writeups, transcripts, and other post-forum information. Updates will be posted throughout December and January.

Forum Programme

Plenary Session: Thursday, October 27, 8:30 - 10:30

The opening plenary will provide both a thoughtful reflection of our achievements as well as a call to action in the advancement of women's rights globally. Speakers will reflect not only on the successes we've had but they will also probe our key failures and some of the unintended consequences of our work. We'll learn about our advances and pitfalls in gender and economic justice work, what change has meant within women's human rights, and how young feminists perceive the legacy that's been left for them to take up and transform. This session will also set the stage for a thrilling four days of learning, networking and strategising.

Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is the co-founder and Executive Director of the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF), the first Africawide fundraising and grant-making organisation for African women. Bisi is also the President of the Association for Women's Rights in Development. Prior to AWDF, she was cofounder and board member of the Black and Migrant Women in Europe Network and was the Director of Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), an international development organisation for African women based in the UK, with an Africa regional office in Kampala, Uganda. While at AMwA, she founded the African Women's Leadership Institute (AWLI) which has run feminist leadership development programmes for women all over Africa. She has a BA and MA in History from the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and an MA in Gender Studies from Middlesex University, UK. She has experience as a journalist, writer, lecturer, trainer, fundraiser, and as an organisational development specialist. She is also very active with philanthropic organizations all over the world, including currently co-chairing the International Network of Women's Funds, acting as board member of Partnership for Transparency Fund and Allavida, and advisor to Mama Cash and Global Fund for Women.

Sunila Abeysekera is a feminist and human rights activist, who works in Sri Lanka and internationally on issues relating to processes of conflict transformation and the impact of conflict on women, as well as on issues of identity and of sexual and reproductive rights. She is a trainer and educator on women's rights and human rights and the Director of INFORM, a human rights documentation centre based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sunila is also a Founder Member of the Women and Media Collective as well as the Women's Support Group in Sri Lanka. In 1994 she received an MA in Women and Development from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. She has been at the forefront of international women's human rights analysis and advocacy at the regional and international level. In 1998, she received the UN Human Rights Prize.

Tara Chetty teaches broadcast journalism at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. Concurrently she is a presenter for Fiji Television News. She has additional experience in TV and radio advertising, and as a writer and journalist. From 2002 till 2004 she was on the Management Board of the Fiji Women's Rights Movement, and from 2004 on she has been a Member of the FWRM Young Women's Working Group as well as a facilitator at the FWRM/DAWN Pacific feminist advocacy training workshop this year. She won the 2003 Fiji Television Award for Best Student Television Journalism, as well as the 2002 Radio Australia Prize and Storyboard Award as part of the USP reporting team to the UNICEF Pacific Regional Youth Congress on HIV/AIDS. A keen athlete, she holds a silver medal for Outrigger Canoeing in the South Pacific Games.

Joanna Kerr has been the Executive Director of the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) since 2000 and has been part of much of AWID's transformation. Previously she was a Senior Researcher at The North-South Institute in Ottawa where she managed the gender program for almost seven years. She created the Gender and Economic Reforms in Africa (GERA) Program, an African action research initiative to influence economic policies from a gender perspective now hosted by Third World Network Africa. Joanna Kerr holds an MA in Gender and Development from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. She has produced several publications related to women's human rights and gender and globalisation. A passionate feminist, she is also advisor or board member to several initiatives and organisations including Gender at Work, Gender and Development Journal, Society for International Development, and Creative Resources for Empowerment and Action (CREA).

Junya Lek Yimprasert founded the Thai Labour Campaign at the beginning of the new millennium. Her interest in labour issues began in 1990 when she started her first job with the Asian Migrant Center in Hong Kong. She moved on to the Center for Labour Information Service and Training, where she got the opportunity to focus on women workers' issues, and began to learn about the labour movement in Thailand. In 1995, Lek assisted in establishing Focus on the Global South in Thailand. In 1998, she was invited by Reebok to take the position of Human Rights Coordinator for Reebok in Thailand. She resigned after four months and went on to write a research paper entitled "Can Corporate Codes of Conduct Promote Labour Standards: Evidence from the Thai Footwear and Apparel Industries." She has written numerous other articles and reports related to women workers and labour exploitation in the neo-liberal market economy. Lek now holds many advisory positions, including to the Assembly of the Poor , the Workers Rights Consortium and the Asia Focal Point for Asian Gender and Trade Network.