PARTNERS

Aceh – Suraiya Kamaruzzaman: As executive director of Flower Aceh which was established in 1989, Ms.Kamaruzzaman has relentlessly championed the rights Acehnese women following the Indonesian army’s brutal crackdown on the Aceh Freedom Movement (GAM) in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Flower Aceh’s main concern during that time was to empower women by ensuring their safety and advising them on issues of economic and reproductive rights. The organization also collected and record data on violence against women, which was rampant after many men were killed and kidnapped following the government’s clamp-down of the freedom movement.  Since the 2004 tsunami, the organization has been running a Women’s Crisis Centre in conjunction with other local women’s groups and works to empower women in the social, political and economic sphere. Ms.Kamaruzzaman led the ICAN/MIT 1325 assessment in Aceh.

Colombia – Elena Rey: Ms.Rey conducted the MIT/ICAN case work in Colombia.  She works as a researcher for the Corporación Ensayos para la Promoción de la Cultura Política, specially supporting a women´s programme and peace issues. For three years she worked as a researcher on international human rights, gender policies, and international cooperation in the Indigenous Observatory of Public Policy in CECOIN. She was coordinator and editor of the yearly report on Indigenous Human Rights and Cultural, Social, and Education Rights, published in August 2007, namely Indígenas sin Derechos (Indigenous without Rights). Between 2003 –2006, She was a Human Rights Researcher for the Instituto Latinoamericano de Servicios Legales (ILSA) were she was part of the Women`s Tribunal of ESRC. She has also worked for Helpage Internacional, as a Latin- American  Desk Office, as Project Coordinator for Peace Brigades International – Colombia Project, as a Colombia Desk Officer for Christian Aid, and as researcher at The Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR).  Elena has a First Degree in Sociology from the Autonoma University of Barcelona, Msc in Developing Studies (pending dissertation), Social Science Faculty, from South Bank University, in London, Certificate in Developing Studies (with merit),  Birkbeck College, University of London and a MA In Human Resources Management, Faculty of  Business and Management, University of Westminster, London.

Israel-Palestine: Turid Smith Polfus has followed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from research, field-work and work in the region over more than a decade. Her special field of interest has been the political involvement by the Palestinian women’s movement. She was a Research Fellow at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo from 1998 – 2003 and  then Associate Professor at the University of Trondheim, Norway till 2005. Since September 2006 she has lived and worked in Palestine. The last two years she has worked as a consultant including writing a background paper for the UNDP Palestinian Human Development Report 2009/10 Investing in Human Security for a Future State.

Liberia – Cerue Garlo : A community peace builder and gender trainer, Ms. Garlo was a member of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs Pre-election Assessment Delegation to Sierra Leone’s 2007 elections. To ensure the election went smoothly, Ms. Garlo assessed the political environment ahead of the elections, met with key civic and political party leaders as well as President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, and provided public feedback of the delegation’s findings. She later became an international observer of those elections. Prior to her post at WONGOSOL, Ms. Garlo served as finance and administrative manager of the West Africa Network for Peace Building Liberia, where she managed women in peace-building programs. During the civil war, Ms. Garlo staged a mass protest to persuade Charles Taylor to negotiate. She was later involved in the United Nations Development Programme’s mid-term evaluation of Liberia’s disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation, and reintegration process. In this capacity, she ensured that key stakeholders, especially female ex-combatants, were consulted in UNDP’s evaluation. She contributed to grassroots mobilization that was instrumental in President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s victory. Through The Initiative for Inclusive Security, Ms. Garlo attended American University’s Peacebuilding and Development Institute in the summer of 2007. She also participated in the World Bank’s February 2007 Liberia Partners’ Forum, a transformative opportunity to engender Liberia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. Ms. Garlo holds a degree in accounting and economics from the University of Liberia and a diploma in social work from the Mother Patern College of Health Sciences of Don Bosco Polytechnic.

Sri Lanka – Shyamala Gomez led the MIT/ICAN Sri Lanka case study.  Since 2006 she has been a Gender Advisor to the United Nations Office of the Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka. She has extensive experience as researcher and university lecturer on issues of gender, human rights, labor and law. Ms.Gomez has consulted with a wide range international organizations including the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), ILO on Labor Law Reform; Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), UNFPA, UNDP and Action Aid regarding gender and security issues. Her experience with national organizations includes the Peace Council, Women and Media Collective.  She has also published extensively on issues of gender, violence and peace in the context of Sri Lanka.  Ms. Gomez holds an LL.M (Master of Laws) on Human Rights and Women’s Rights from Georgetown University, and LL.B (Bachelor of Laws) from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. In 2001-2 she was Visiting Researcher at the Harvard Law School.

Uganda – Lina Zedriga; Lina Zedriga led the research in Uganda, she is a lawyer and an expert in “women, peace, and security.” Since 2007 she has been the program manager of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 Project, aimed at empowering women for durable peace and reconciliation. Ms. Zedriga staged a media and grassroots campaign to get women into the negotiations, leading a four-day march into areas of war and rape, then flying into Juba to deliver a peace torch to the Vice President. In 2005, Ms. Zedriga served as program adviser to Northern Uganda Peace Initiatives, where she designed the Women in Peace Building and Reconciliation program, which included bringing together 300 internally displaced women and other Northern Ugandans to advance peace in the region. Before that, she was associate director of the Center for Conflict Management and Peace Studies at Gulu University, where she coordinated community outreach programs, led research, and helped develop a post-graduate diploma in conflict management and peace studies. She has trained women political candidates in nine districts in Uganda. She has consulted for UNIFEM, trained police officers to protect victims of rape and sexual assault, and facilitated workshops for The Institute for Security Studies. Ms. Zedriga holds a Master’s degree in human rights, a law degree, and a certificate of laws from Makerere University. She is a member of the Network of African Peace Builders, the African Judicial Network, and the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers among others. Ms. Zedriga speaks English, Luo, Luganda, Lugbara, and Kiswahili.

Fiji/Pacific Islands* – Sharon Bhagwon Rolls: Following the coup and subsequent political crises of May 2000, Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls and others founded fem’LINKpacific, a women’s media NGO, established to increase the visibility of gender issues and women’s stories within the context of the crisis and to ensure conflict prevention. The organization developed, produced, and distributed community media initiatives at the local, national, and regional levels, including documentation initiatives in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands supported by UNIFEM Pacific. Since October 2000, Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls has been a strong Pacific-based advocate for the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1325 and in June 2006 was a co-facilitator of the first regional workshop addressing 1325 by the Pacific islands forum secretariat. As secretary of Fiji’s Women, Peace, and Security Coordinating Committee and the National Council of Women in Fiji, Ms. Bhagwan-Rolls strengthens women’s participation in decision-making structures that have too long excluded them. She was the youth and media representative on Fiji’s government delegation to the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women and appointed by the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women to the expert group meeting on women and media in November 2002. In 2010 she was appointed to the UN Civil Society Advisory Group (CSAG) on UNSCR 1325 co-chaired by Mary Robinson.

Nepal – Shobha Guatam: Shobha Gautam is a human rights advocate and journalist, and has worked for women’s rights in Nepal for more than 20 years. Ms. Gautam is the founder and president of the Institute for Human Rights Communication Nepal, where she conducts training for security forces, policymakers, teachers, and journalists on the importance of gender and human rights. She has had a profound impact in pioneering and coordinating grassroots movements for the inclusion of women in Nepal’s peace process. At the national level, Ms. Gautam was the founder-coordinator of Shantimalika (Women’s Network for Peace), which advocates for the implementation of UN Resolution 1325. Ms. Gautam has studied the Maoist affected regions of Nepal to gain a better understanding of the impact of conflict on women and children. From this research, she has published several books and articles, including “Women and Children in the Periphery of the Peoples’ War” and “Study of Women Living in Conflict Situation.” In 2005, Ms. Gautam received the Krishna Mohan-Nudup Peace Award for raising awareness of the role of women in the peace process and was granted a UNESCO fellowship to investigate women in rural Nepal through photography and story. Ms. Guatam received her bachelor’s degree in political science and history and master’s degree in political science from Tribhuban University.

Pakistan – Kishwar Sultana; Kishwar Sultana is director of Insan Foundation, whose programs focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment, advocacy and research, and children’s leadership development. She is also a co-founder of the Women’s Action for Peace (WAP) coalition that has mobilized grassroots women in support of peace and violence prevention and UNSCR 1325 implementation across conflict affected settings in Pakistan. A consultant to numerous NGOs and international development organizations, Ms. Sultana is currently working as a gender adviser for Communication for Effective Social Service Delivery, which is undertaking a project on water supply and sanitation, education, and health in eight districts of the Northwest Frontier Province. Insan Foundation also works with 40,000 Afghan refugees in that region. Ms. Sultana is providing technical assistance to the Pakistani government for implementation of the Gender Reform Action Plan, mandated to mainstream gender in eight government departments, and is also a member of a government committee on post-conflict assessment. A member of UNIFEM’s Afghanistan/Pakistan Dialogue on Women, Peace and Security and Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 in Pakistan, Ms. Sultana is the author of a paper about UNSCR 1325 that focuses on issues of gender-based violence and refugee camps covered in Articles 10 and 12. She is an active member of the CEDAW Committee of NGOs, and her research on gender sensitivity in government employment will be part of CEDAW’s shadow report to the UN. From 2004 to 2008, she was gender and communication coordinator for the Canadian International Development Agency’s Devolution Support Project. Ms. Sultana is the author of several booklets on women and human rights issues. She is also an artist and illustrator of children’s books and has a master’s degree in geography from University of the Punjab.