Alda Facio
Alda Facio is a feminist human rights activist, jurist and writer. She has lectured extensively around the world and written many articles on women’s human rights. In 2003 she was the 7th Dame Nita Barrow Distinguished Visitor at the University of Toronto where she founded the Women Human Rights Education Institute and now serves as Advisor, Legal Expert and Facilitator. She has been advisor to several international NGOs including JASS (Just Associates and Ixpop, an indigenous women´s organization from Guatemala. She was one of the founders of CLADEM, the Latin American Committee for Women´s Rights and of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1996, she was its first Director. In 2005 she was appointed to the UN Secretary General’s Task Force on Violence against Women. From 2014 – 2020 she was appointed to the Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls as one of five members of this Special Procedure of the UN Human Rights Council.
Alda has participated as a government delegate in many world conferences and working groups including the Rome Conference which adopted the Statute of the International Criminal Court and the working group which drafted the Optional Protocol to CEDAW. She was the director of the Women, Gender and Justice Program at the United Nations Latin American Institute for Crime Prevention from 1990 to 2018. She lectures at several universities and human rights institutions in the Americas and in Spain. She has been teaching a course on access to justice for women for the past five years at FLACSO, Argentina and is the President of the Fundación Justicia y Género, a CSO which centers its work on training legislators and judges on women´s human rights. She has written hundreds of articles for different journals and magazines and her book on a methodology for mainstreaming a gender perspective into the law is used in many law schools and Judiciary Schools in Latin America.
Angela Lytle
Angela Lytle is a women’s human rights defender and adult educator with extensive experience developing and facilitating workshops and capacity building programs in international settings. Involved in the WHRI since its inception in 2004, Angela acted as Executive Director and Educational Programs Director between 2009 – 2021, and continues to support WHRI in an Advisory role. Under her leadership, the WHRI expanded to offer international programs, online learning and consultancy, new partnerships, and enhanced WHRI’s impact in the areas of advocacy and strategic knowledge mobilization for women’s human rights defenders. Angela served as a resource person with IWRAW-APs “Global to Local” program for NGO representatives at the CEDAW Committee and engaged in research and knowledge dissemination activities for the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls. Angela lived in South Korea where she engaged in educational and activist work with the Korean Women’s Associations United, and organizations supporting survivors of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery. She has a Masters in Adult Education and Community Development.
Carme Clavel Arcas
Carme is a feminist activist, human rights defender and physician from the Autonomous University of Barcelona with a master’s degree in public health from CIES -UNAN Managua and specializations in gender, economic empowerment, and cooperation. Since July 2021, she has been working as a consultant with several feminist, human rights, health promotion and prevention of violence against women and girls’ organizations such as JASS, Together for Girls, and Global Communities, and since 2022 the Women Human Rights Institute (WHRI). She was a consultant-coordinator from February 2022 to October 2023 for Colombian Caravana, a British NGO of human rights lawyers in solidarity with Colombia.
From 2015 to June 2021, she was Regional Co-Director of JASS (Just Associates) Mesoamerica, a global network of feminist popular educators and human rights defenders and part of the steering committee of the Mesoamerican Women Human Rights Defenders Initiative. Since late 2020 she is part of the Leadership Council of the Global Women Institute at George Washington University in DC (USA). From 2008 to 2014 she was responsible for Gender at the Spanish Cooperation Agency (AECID) in Nicaragua. From 2000 to 2007 she worked in Atlanta, USA, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), accompanying Ministries of Health and Universities in Colombia, El Salvador and Nicaragua in documenting violence and injuries to design multi sectoral care and prevention plans. In Nicaragua, she co-created the Women’s Network against Violence and the Women’s Health Network and co-founded the SI Mujer Health Center.
Dr. Amanda Dale
A Research Fellow at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, Amanda Dale is an international human rights scholar and activist, with a specialization in gender-based violence, access to justice and women’s international human rights.
Amanda is a recognized spokesperson and expert in the way law impacts marginalized people’s lives and in women’s rights and violence against women. She has over 30 years’ experience working in municipal, provincial, national, international, multicultural, urban, and remote contexts. Her leadership was pivotal to the Jane Doe Audit of Toronto Police sexual assault investigations, the successful restriction of the use of religious arbitration in the settlement of family law matters in Ontario, the development of a women’s shelter in the Arctic, and the success of projects in Ghana and Sudan that resulted in increased women’s political participation. Under her leadership as executive director, Canada’s only gender-based violence legal clinic, the Barbra Schlifer Clinic, completed a historic period of growth and influence, including an advanced role in direct access to justice service development, test case litigation, appellate work and the achievement of U.N. ECOSOC status.
For three decades, Amanda has remained active in the feminist movement contributing to many organizations, including Quimaavik Shelter (Nunavut), Nellie’s Hostel, St. Joseph’s Women Health Centre, YWCA Toronto, and is the Vice-Chair of the Board at Inter Pares, and the advisory board of the Canadian Centre for Legal Innovation in Sexual Assault Response (CCLISAR), and of the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability. Amanda is the 2013 recipient of the YWCA Woman of Distinction Award for Social Justice. Amanda holds a Master in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. from Osgoode Hall Law School focused on intersectional approaches to women’s international human rights at CEDAW.
Bhavya Joshi
Bhavya Joshi (she/her) hails from India and is currently pursuing her Doctor of Public Health from University of California, Berkeley. As a Global Public Health Fellow, and a Fellow at the Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law, Bhavya’s research focuses on understanding the reproductive needs of refugee and internally displaced women and girls in compounded crisis settings.
Bhavya is a women’s human rights advocate and educator and manages programs to strengthen the capacity of women rights defenders from across the globe to use international human rights mechanisms for advocacy and activism at national, regional, and international levels. She has contributed to Special Procedures submissions on women’s reproductive health issues.
Prior to starting her doctorate, Bhavya worked in India and the subcontinent region for over 6 years where she managed, implemented, and evaluated public health, education, and WASH projects with a focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights. Bhavya received her MA in International Law and Human Rights from the United Nations mandated University for Peace, Costa Rica.
Anya Victoria Delgado
Anya Victoria-Delgado brings over fifteen years of experience in the field of International Human Rights Law and International Refugee Law. Anya’s expertise extends across various domains, including the protection of refugees, gender-based violence (GBV) against women and girls, sexual and reproductive health and rights, the prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment (SEAH), and the women’s movement in Latin America. She has also demonstrated experience in integrating Diversity, Equality, Inclusion, and Belonging into workspaces and programs.
Throughout her career, Anya Victoria-Delgado has held key roles in international organizations as Senior Program Manager at the Women and Gender Area at the Pan-American Development Foundation (PADF) and as the global coordinator of the Feminist Alliance for Rights (FAR) at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) in the United States. Additionally, she has been Senior Protection Associate at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and consultant for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in Mexico.
Anya holds a Law degree from Universidad Panamericana in Mexico and an LL.M. degree in Human Rights Law from the University of Notre Dame in the United States. Anya has obtained certificates in women’s human rights from Universidad de Chile and the University of Toronto, sexual violence from Universidad de Andalucía, and social impact strategy from the University of Pennsylvania.
Terry Ince
Terry Dale Ince is the founder and convener of CEDAW Committee of Trinidad and Tobago (CCoTT), a UN ECOSOC accredited volunteer non-governmental organization focused on Advocacy, Education and Public Awareness on and for the sustainable implementation of the principles of the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Using a collaborative approach, CCoTT uses the recommendations advanced at state periodic reviews to ensure compliance within a national and human rights context. She is also the Managing Director of TDI and Associates, a Change and Development Management consulting practice which integrate the principles of change management into daily practice for behavior change with a practical formation in the field of development work and gender issues, particularly as it extends to the inclusion of women, young people, marginalized communities, and the environment.
Anna Arutshyan
Anna Arutshyan is an advocate for feminist international human rights law and a campaigner for long-lasting global peace. Over 25 years, she has introduced numerous projects and research aimed at gender education and has worked with leading women’s funds and networks. In 2001, she founded the grassroots women’s organisation ‘’Society Without Violence’’ in Armenia. She also initiated the formation of the Coalition ”To Stop Violence Against Women” in Armenia and promoted the establishment of the “Women In Black” Armenian Initiative, as part of the WIB global peacebuilders movement.
After relocation to the UK, she co-founded Oxford-based ‘Women’s Solidarity Fund’. Through the fund, Anna organises and co-facilitates the Women’s Human Rights Education Institute’s CEDAW for Change Oxford Programme hosting women CSO leaders, lawyers, and policy writers from Global South. Anna has a LLM in International Human Rights Law from Oxford Brookes University, having written her dissertation on protection mechanisms for sexual violence victims and witnesses under International Criminal Court.
Walleska Pareja Díaz
Walleska is a lawyer and international consultant on issues related to human rights and Legal Drafting. She has a Master’s Degree in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University. In her country of origin, Ecuador, she has worked in the public sector and was a university instructor. Since 2013, her work has focussed on supporting Latin American civil society organizations in their advocacy efforts. Since 2016, she continued this work at the United Nations Human Rights mechanisms in Geneva-Switzerland.
Kenita Placide
Kenita Placide is the Caribbean Advisor for OutRight Action International and Director of the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality (ECADE), LGBTI Human Rights organisations based in New York and Saint Lucia respectively. Kenita served as a director of United and Strong Inc from 2006 – 2016, Co-Secretary General (2010-2012) and Coordinator ( 2012 – 2015) of the Eastern Caribbean hub of the Caribbean Forum for Liberation and Acceptance of Genders and Sexualities (CariFLAGS). In addition Kenita contributed to the International Lesbian and Gay Association World Board as Alternate Co-Secretary General, Alternate Women’s Secretariat and is now the lead contact for United and Strong Inc as the Women’s Secretariat representative. Kenita was the Caribbean Co-Chair (2012 – 2015 for the Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights project.
Lakshya Dhungana
Lakshya is a documentary filmmaker and feminist social justice advocate based in Toronto. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Development from University of Toronto. She has worked with different projects related to women’s rights and gender in various capacities including communication, coordination, content production & media engagement. She explores issues of human rights, gender and sexuality through visual art, placing her own body, it’s experiences and social location at the centre. Lakshya is a WHRI alumna, and has been engaged with the institute since 2013. Her work can be found at www.lakshyafilms.com.