Tonight VLS presents a speaker who just returned to the States from a meeting in Dakar of Women Living Under Muslim Laws, a meeting attended by women from Afghanistan, Iran and Indonesia, among other countries; a couple of weeks earlier she was in Geneva at a session of the UN Human Rights Council, where she engaged on issues of women’s rights, sexual orientation and gender identity. Tonight she will be speaking on “Sexuality, Gender, the US and the UN: Where Are We Now?”
Date and time:Tonight (Monday) at 6 PM
Place: Chase Center
Speaker: Cynthia Rothschild
Cynthia Rothschild is an independent consultant and former Senior Policy Advisor at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership; she is currently consulting in areas related to the United Nations, HIV/AIDS, women human rights defenders and sexual rights.
A sexual rights activist for over 19 years, she is the author of:
- Written Out: How Sexuality is Used to Attack Women’s Organizing;
- Strengthening Resistance: Confronting Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS;
- Amnesty International’s Crimes of Hate, Conspiracy of Silence: Torture and
Ill-Treatment Based on Sexual Identity; - several recently published articles on sexual rights, including
“Abstinence Goes Global: The United States, the Right Wing, and Human Rights”, and - “Not Your Average Sex Story: Critical Issues in Recent Reporting on Human Rights and Sexuality”
A former member of Amnesty International USA’s Board of Directors and a founding member of Amnesty USA’s LGBT program, she now serves on the Advisory Board of Human Rights
Watch’s LGBT Program. In addition, she has worked with a number of NGOs in women’s human rights, reproductive rights and HIV/AIDS, as well as in a consulting capacity at UNIFEM. Her UN advocacy includes a focus on creation of a new women’s organization at the UN, the UN Human Rights Council, the Commission on the Status of Women and on various projects related to HIV&AIDS and rights of children.
Watch’s LGBT Program. In addition, she has worked with a number of NGOs in women’s human rights, reproductive rights and HIV/AIDS, as well as in a consulting capacity at UNIFEM. Her UN advocacy includes a focus on creation of a new women’s organization at the UN, the UN Human Rights Council, the Commission on the Status of Women and on various projects related to HIV&AIDS and rights of children.
She sits on the steering committees of two international campaigns: Women Won’t Wait: End HIV and Violence Against Women. Now!, and the International Women Human Rights Defenders Coalition. She holds graduate degrees from Columbia University in International Affairs and in Public Health.
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