People
Rangita de Silva-de Alwis, LL.M., S.J.D.
Rangita de Silva-de Alwis
Rangita de Silva-de Alwis, LL.M., S.J.D.
Senior Advisor on International Programs
Rangita de Silva-de Alwis is the senior advisor on international programs at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) where she takes the lead on new global initiatives for the organization. A well-known human rights lawyer and scholar with her LL.M. and S.J.D. from Harvard Law School, Rangita was recently a research fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and brings a wealth of experiences working with women’s groups in Asia on the rights of women and children.
Rangita served as the director of international programs at a legal research and consulting firm based in Massachusetts specializing in improving justice programs. Responsible for all aspects of international programming, she conceptualized, developed, and carried out programs to strengthen the rule of law and human rights framework in China, Vietnam, Pakistan, and programs with a regional focus in Asia. Rangita also assisted the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in reviewing and implementing the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in China, and wrote a 16-country study on girl child labor for UNICEF. She has served as a consultant to other UN agencies and offices committed to children, human rights, and social advancement, and as a senior advisor to the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University Law School. Rangita’s work has been published in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism and Texas Law School Women's Law Journal.
Rangita currently leads WCW initiatives on women's rights issues in China, Asia regional law reform, gender equality and domestic violence laws from around the world. She recently developed a seminal Asia regional conference on women's and children's rights working with colleagues from UNICEF, as well as CEDAW and CRC treaty bodies. Under the auspices of the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Institute, Rangita is currently developing innovative and groundbreaking programs on the intersections of the rights of women’s, children’s, and persons with disabilities. She recently conducted a mapping on Asia's Human Rights organizations for the Ford Foundation. Out of this report and recommendations to Ford Foundation grew the Asia Cause Lawyer Network that Rangita helped set up in India.
Recently, Rangita conducted a training program for the staff of the Secretariat for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (SCRPD) and other United Nations’ (UN) agencies at the UN. During the program, de Silva-de Alwis shared tools and a theoretical framework on human rights-based approaches within a gender equality framework in order to support effective program development domestically, regionally, and internationally, and to help operationalize the new convention. Additionally, Rangita has been selected to serve as a member of the UN Evaluation Group Task Force on Evaluation Guidance-Human Rights and Gender Equality. This high-level advisory group is developing a guidance document for incorporating a human rights and gender equality perspective in all UN agency evaluations. She will participate in a workshop in November to review the draft guidelines and to strategize on moving them forward.
A collaboration between the Asian University for Women (AUW) and WCW resulted in the design of a year-long gender studies course, Women Shaping Society. A requirement for all second-year students at AUW, Women Shaping Society will provide an alternative discourse to challenge prevailing gender norms in Asia and help students become a vital part of the region’s new role in global, social, and economic development. Rangita developed a multi-volume course design complete with reading materials, questions, and suggested student projects for the course. (Please see page 10 of the AUW newsletter for more details on this collaboration.)
Rangita currently leads initiatives on 1) women's rights issues in China, 2) Asia regional law reform, 3) gender equality and domestic violence laws from around the world , and 4) an Asia regional conference on women's and children's rights.
- Gender-Based Legal Reform in China: The Transformative Potential of Human Rights Norms and Transnational Engagements (2/28/2008) 61:31 min (audio)
- Child Marriage and the Law paper
- Legislative Reform on Child Domestic Labour - A Gender Analysis paper
- Women's and Children's Rights in a Human Rights Based Approach paper
- Women’s Rights in Labour Migration and Children’s Rights paper (9M)