Note No. 5697

                                                            16 November 2001

Note to Correspondents

PANEL DISCUSSION ON ‘WOMEN IN AFGHANISTAN’ AT HEADQUARTERS 20 NOVEMBER

A panel discussion on “Women in Afghanistan:  Beyond the media portrayal to action” will be held from 1:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. Tuesday, 20 November, in Conference Room 2 at Headquarters.

Angela King, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, will deliver opening remarks.  Panellists are: Tahmeena Faryal, of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA); Jessica Neuwirth, founder and current President of Equality Now, an international women’s rights group; and Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).  The panel will be moderated by Marcia Brewster, Special Events Coordinator, Group on Equal Rights for Women in the United Nations.

The discussion will focus on proposals to include Afghan women in the peace process, the concrete ways in which women are setting that process in motion, and how women in the United Nations can participate through advocacy.

Ms. Faryal is a Pakistan-based member of RAWA.  She fled Afghanistan for a Pakistan refugee camp when the Soviet Union invaded.  Educated in RAWA schools in Pakistan, she became committed to working for human rights and women’s rights.  As a RAWA member, she has taught children in refugee camps, distributed humanitarian aid to refugees and taken part in RAWA demonstrations concerning the inhumane conditions in Afghanistan.  She travels internationally to raise awareness about the plight of Afghan women and helps edit and produce RAWA’s Persian and English language publications.

Ms. Neuwirth is a graduate of the Harvard Law School.  From 1985 to 1990, she worked for Amnesty International in various capacities, including policy adviser for Amnesty International USA, tour producer for Human Rights Now! and first chair of Amnesty International USA’s Women and Human Rights Task Force.  She then worked for three years at a New York-based international law firm, specializing in international finance for developing countries.  Subsequently, she served as Legal Officer for the United Nations Administrative Tribunal and as a consultant to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.  On the Rwanda Tribunal she worked on the sexual violence charges in several cases, including the landmark case of Jean Paul Akayesu, which set forth a definition of rape in international law and a finding that rape constitutes a form of genocide.

For further information contact Ms. Brewster, at 212-963-8590 (Brewster@un.org) or Ms. Van den Bosch, 917-367-3267 (nrforuml@un.org).

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