Research & Action Report Spring/Summer 2009

In November, Rangita de Silva-de Alwis, LL .M., S.J.D., served as a moderator at the Conference on Legislative Reform to Achieve Human Rights held in New York, NY. Presentations provided an opportunity for representatives of participating organizations to showcase their current work on legislative reform and discuss challenges and opportunities to achieve human rights, specifically those of children, and the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Earlier that month, her work was presented at the Dialogue on National Monitoring of Human Rights Treaties, also in New York, NY.

In January, de Silva-de Alwis traveled to Bangladesh and Nepal for the disability rights conferences outlined in the previous article. The following month, she presented a discussion on Women’s Rights Advocacy in China at The Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations: Social Policy: Culture, Belief, andGender in a Changing Asia program in Cambridge, MA. As a member of the advisory board of the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG), de Silva-de Alwis attend the Workshop on Gender Equality and Human Rights Evaluation Guidance held in February in New York, NY. In April she attended the Geneva meeting held on Mainstreaming Disability and MDG Policies, Processes and Mechanisms. The UNEG is a professional network that brings together the units responsible for evaluation in the UN system, including the specialized agencies, funds, programs and affiliated organizations, decided to develop guidance on integrating human rights and gender equality perspectives into evaluation within the UN system. In March, de Silva-de Alwis attended the International Conference on Violence Against the Girl Child held in The Hague. The conference focused on violence against the girl child in the home and family. In May, she traveled to Cambodia for work to build disability rights coalitions before then traveling to India for the Asia Cause Lawyer Network Steering Committee Meeting and Seminar on Disability Rights for Women.