Empowerment of Women Under Special Circumstances | UN Commission on the Status of Women [NYC]
Armed conflict has a pronounced impact on women and girls, significantly constraining their access to education, healthcare, and economic empowerment, and even survival.
In this panel, we will emphasize the adverse consequences of armed conflict on the lives of women and girls, highlighting the multifaceted ways in which their rights are further curtailed and their lives and livelihoods threatened, and their exposure to sexual violence. The panel aims to comprehensively address these challenges and explore the crucial need for mitigating long-term effects while considering the protection of human rights.
The panel will feature Nancy Okail, President and CEO of the Center for International Policy; Rula Jebreal, award-winning journalist, scholar and foreign policy expert; Nadine Farid Johnson, Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for international Policy and moderated by Marlyn Tadrous, Executive Director at Digital Democracy Now (formerly Virtual Activism).
IN-PERSON EVENT
March 12, 2024
2:30pm – 4:00pm EST
Church Center for the United Nations (New York, NY)
CCUN 8th floor
You must be registered to attend. Learn more at https://ngocsw68forum.vfairs.com/
This event is co-sponsored by Virtual Activism/Digital Democracy Now and the Center for International Policy.
About The Speakers:
Nancy Okail
Dr. Nancy Okail is President and CEO of the Center for International Policy. She is a leading scholar, policy analyst, and advocate with more than 20 years of experience working on issues of human rights, democracy, and security in the Middle East and North Africa region. Previously, Dr. Okail served as Executive Director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP). In 2020, she was a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. As Director of Freedom House’s Egypt program, she was one of 43 nongovernmental organization workers sentenced to prison for allegedly using foreign funds to foment unrest in Egypt in 2012. In December 2018, a court ruling exonerated her. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex in the UK.
Rula Jebreal
Rula Jebreal is an award-winning journalist, author, scholar, and foreign policy expert. Born in Haifa, her experience growing up in a Palestinian orphanage motivated her distinguished career in peace and security studies and dedication to immigration rights. She is currently a visiting professor at the University of Miami, where she teaches journalism and communication courses focused on propaganda and genocide. In 2021, Jebreal was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Political Science by the University of Messina in Italy.
Previously, Jebreal served on the G-7 Gender Equality Advisory Council (GEAC) and was a visiting professor at the American University of Rome (AUR). At AUR, she was instrumental in the creation of a scholarship program to support students from conflict-torn countries, including Syria, Afghanistan, Swaziland, Egypt, Palestine, and Ukraine. For this work, Jebreal was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Humanities from AUR in 2017. Jebreal’s writing is consistently featured in and covered by major international media outlets.
Nadine Farid Johnson
Nadine Farid Johnson is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for International Policy and an attorney and former U.S. diplomat with extensive experience in geopolitics and public policy. Her areas of expertise include free expression, democracy and good governance, and technology policy.
Nadine has lived and worked on four continents. At the State Department, her remit included U.S. multilateral policy and UN Special Missions engagement in conflict zones in the Middle East, security and environmental concerns in the Levant and Iraq, and issues of fraud and illegal smuggling operations in West Africa. She previously served as the Managing Director for Washington and Free Expression Programs for PEN America, leading engagement with governments in the foreign policy, tech policy, and domestic policy spheres and, previously, as the Executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas.
A former professor of law, Nadine began her academic career as a Harvard Law School Climenko Fellow. She is a graduate of DePauw University and Tulane Law School, and studied at the U.S. Naval War College.
Marlyn Tadros
Marlyn Tadros, a leading human rights defender from Egypt now in the U.S., serves as a Professor at Southern New Hampshire University. She taught at Northeastern University, and was a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Law School. Before moving to the U.S. in 1998, Tadros worked in Cairo as Deputy Director of the Legal Research and Resource Center for Human Rights.
Tadros is actively engaged in human rights in the Arab world and is serving on the boards of several organizations including the Middle East Democracy Center. She has founded Virtual Activism, a pioneering project at the intersection of technology, human rights, and development. She has numerous publications covering human rights, education, technology, and social media.