Interdisciplinary Workshop: Global Challenges in Securing Reproductive Rights and the Empowerment of Women and Girls

On Friday 18th May, an interdisciplinary workshop entitle: 'Global Challenges in Securing Reproductive Rights and Empowerment of Women and Girls' will be co-hosted bt Dr Sheelagh McGuinness (Law), Dr Tigist Grieve (Education) and Dr Jane M Rooney (Law).  This event will focus on the themes of abortion, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and violence against adolescents and women. 

This is an interdisciplinary workshop, bringing together experts within and outside the University of Bristol from Law, International Developmet, Education, Anthropology, Policy and Health, as well as UN, NHRI and think tank representatives, to share and contextualise carious approaches to implementation of reproductive rights and empowerment of women and girls.

The aim of the workshop is to identify both global strategies which can or have been used at the local level, as well as effective local strategies that could be extrapolated to the global or applied in a different domestic context, to improve rights of women and girls.  This event is an exciting opportunity to bring together scholars within the university and high profile external speakers, who have an interest in human rights, health, development and gender.

This event is open to students and staff.  Full programme below.  Places are limited, please book via Eventbrite.

The workshop is generously funded by FSSL Gender Research Group, FSSL Health, Science & Technology Research Group, the Law School Strategic Research Fund and the University of Bristol FSSL Strategic Research Fund.

Workshop Programme

10.00-10.30: Welcome & Registration

10.30-12.15: Panel One: Marriage & Abortion
The opening panel is designed to bring together scholars on marriage, family planning and reproductive rights, identifying their interrelatedness from a variety of disciplinary perspectives including Law, International Development and Social & Medical Anthropology.  Links between the local and international are developed throughout the stream, emphasising global responses to local problems and the potential for local strategies to influence the global.

• Dr Tigist Grieve (Education, Bristol)
• Dr Jane M Rooney (Law, Bristol)
• Dr Ruth Fletcher (Queen Mary's School of Law)
• Prof Maya Unnithan (Professor of Social and Medical Anthropology, Sussex)
• Chair: Sara Davies (PhD Cardiff/Bristol)

12.15-13.00: Lunch

13.00-14.45: Panel Two: Female Genital Mutilation and Violence Against Women
Mirroring Panel One, this panel is interdisciplinary, bringing together academics in Law, Education, Health and Social Care and think tank perspective on Female Genital Mutilation and Violence Against Women primarily in the Global South.  Intersectional issues are examined from within and outside the human rights framework, including from a development and health perspective.

• Dr Ekaterina Yahaoui (Law, NUI Galway)
• Dr Mhairi Gibson (Anthropology, Bristol)
• Dr Nicola Jones (Director, Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence, Overseas Development Institute)
• Dr Sundari Anitha (Health and Social Care, Lincoln)
• Chair: TBC

14.45-15.00: Tea and Coffee

15.00-16.15: Breakout Sessions
Practical workshops related to the themes of the day.

16.15-16.30: Break

16.30-18.00: Plenary Panel

• Les Allamby (Chief Commissioner, Northern Ireland Human Rights Agency)
• Dr Geetanjali Gangoli (Centre for Gender and Violence Research, School for Policy Studies, Bristol)
• Matt Jackson (UK Director, United Nations Reproductive Health and Rights Agency)
• Chair: Dr Sheelagh McGuinness (Law, Bristol)

 18.00: Reception