Women Making History Archives

(Jordan) Asma Khader was a leading human rights lawyer based in Amman. She had over 40 years of experience as a specialized lawyer in human rights and legal protection of victims of human rights violations. Khader was a civil society activist in Jordan at the national, regional, and international levels, and was a gender consultant and founder and CEO for Solidarity is Global Institute/Jordan (SIGI/J). Khader's national appointments include Minister of Culture (2003-2005); Minister of State and the official spokesperson for the Jordanian Government (2013); Member of the Jordanian Senate (2013); Secretary General of the Jordanian National Commission for women (2007-2014); and Commissioner at the Independent Election Commission (2014-2016).

(Brazil) Jacqueline Pitanguy is a sociologist and political scientist. She is Founder and Director of WLP Brazil/Cidadania, Estudo, Pesquisa, Informação e Ação (CEPIA), an NGO based in Rio de Janeiro. At Cepia, Pitanguy coordinates research on gender issues and facilitates advocacy and educational programs related to violence against women and reproductive health. She held a cabinet position in the Brazilian government as President of the National Council for Women's Rights (1986-1989), where she designed and implemented public policies to improve women's condition in Brazil. She has been awarded the Medal of Rio Branco, the highest decoration of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

(Iran/USA) Mahnaz Afkhami is Founder, President Emerita, and Special Advisor of Women’s Learning Partnership and former Minister for Women’s Affairs in Iran. Afkhami has been a leading advocate of women's rights for more than four decades, having founded and served as director and president of several international non-governmental organizations that focus on advancing women's status, including the Women's Organization of Iran. Afkhami also serves on advisory boards and steering committees of a number of national and international organizations including Freer Galleries of The Smithsonian Institution, Foundation for Iranian Studies, The Global Fund for Women, Women’s Learning Partnership, Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, and the World Movement for Democracy. She has appeared on the BBC, CNN, and PBS and in numerous television and radio interviews on NPR, BBC Persian, VOA Persian and other international outlets.

(Kenya) Musimbi Kanyoro is the former President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women. Prior to her time at Global Fund, Musimbi was the Director of Population and Reproductive Health at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. She moved to USA after spending 20 years in Geneva, half of that time as the General Secretary (CEO) of the World YWCA and the other half as the Executive Director of the Women’s department of the Lutheran World Federation. Musimbi served on the international steering committee for the Beijing World Conference on women and led delegations to five United Nations World Conferences throughout the 90’s. She currently is a member of the Civil Society Advisory group to support the work on UN Women and also recently completed her four-year term as a member of the World Bank Gender advisory group.

(Morocco) Rabéa Naciri is a founding member of the Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (ADFM), one of the largest Moroccan NGOs focused on women’s rights. She is a member of the National Human Rights Council of Morocco. In 1988, Naciri co-founded the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights (OMDH) and later became a member of the National Human Rights Council of Morocco. She has largely focused her career around education for women and girls and served on the Moroccan Higher Education Council as well as co-founded the Committee to Support the Schooling of Girls in Rural Areas (CSSF). In 2006 Naciri founded the Equality Without Reservation Coalition, a coalition of 120 organizations from 17 Arab states that aim to end all reservations to the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to ratify the Convention’s Optional Protocol and to fully implement the Convention by MENA governments.

(Saudi Arabia) Thoraya Obaid is former Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and a former United Nations Under-Secretary General. She also serves as chair of the High-Level Committee on Management of the UN System, the principal inter-agency body for coordinating management matters. From 2013 to 2016, Obaid served as one of 30 women appointed to the Shura Council, an advisory body to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Previously, Obaid served as Director of the UNFPA’s Division for Arab States and Europe and Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. Obaid is recipient of numerous awards: Forbes named Obaid among the world’s 50 Most Powerful Arab Women in 2004, and she received the United Nations Population Award Individual Laureate in 2015.

(Turkey) Yakin Ertürk is former UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and a retired professor of sociology who has held a number of international human rights mandates. Ertürk was Project Director for an eleven-country research project on family law and violence against women, which is part of an IDRC-funded law reform advocacy project carried out by Women’s Learning Partnership. Her book, Violence without Borders: Paradigm, Policy and Praxis Concerning Violence against Women, was published in 2016 (translated from the original Turkish version published in 2015). Before joining the UN to become Director of the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) (1997-1999) and then Director of The Division for the Advancement of Women at UN headquarters (1999-2001), Ertürk held posts at King Saud University (1979-1982), Hacettepe University (1983—1986) and Middle East Technical University (METU) (1986-1987).