Sponsored by:
SWEDISH INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION AGENCY
EAHUWO
Equal Status and Human Rights of Women in East Africa
Equal Status and Human Rights of Women in East Africa
Atieno Ndomo
Dr. Chris Coulter
Awino Okech
Marren Akatsa
Okumba Miruka
Dr. Linda Musumba
Joseph Chilengi
Ann-Charlotte Nilsson
Atieno Ndomo is a Kenyan citizen. Passionate about social justice and equity, she has applied skills gained from her professional training in Social Policy and Development, to work towards ensuring lives of dignity, especially for the poor and marginalized sections of society.
Over the past 11 years, Atieno has conceptualized and coordinated policy and legislative advocacy and campaigning initiatives for social justice and equity at international, regional and national levels. She posses a firm grasp of development and gender analysis; and a clear understanding of governance and human rights issues.
As an independent consultant Atieno has undertaken various assignments on policy research and analysis; writing/editing; program reviews and strategic planning and facilitating capacity building processes.
Uppsala University, Sweden
Chris Coulter is a researcher and lecturer at Uppsala University and an independent consultant. She has a PhD in Anthropology from Uppsala University where she has specialized on Gender, conflict and post-conflict rehabilitation.
Her thematic expertise includes areas such as conflict analysis, humanitarian aid, youth and refugees in war and conflict zones, all with a gender perspective. Issues of femininity, masculinity and violence, as well as the psychosocial effects of war and violence (including the spheres of posttraumatic experiences) is also very much in line with her research.
She is author of the book “Bush Wives and Girl Soldiers: women’s lives through war and peace in Sierra Leone” (2009) and co-author of “Young Female Fighters in African Wars: Conflict and its Consequences” (2008). Chris has worked mainly in Sierra Leone, West Africa, but has also carried out several consultancies, assessments, and evaluation assignments on gender issues (Kenya, Zambia, Sudan, Liberia) for Sida and Unicef.
Awino is a feminist researcher and activist currently living in Nairobi, Kenya. Awino's development experience includes work across Europe and in sections of Africa.
The changing definitions of citizenship, power and politics, particularly the manner in which they are contested and claimed in various societies has been central to her work. Her core work in community development has been through civil society organizations in Kenya and South Africa. This has involved building the capacity of women led community initiatives as well as broad based activism around women’s rights concerns.
She is reading for a Doctoral degree in Gender studies at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town, with her research and programmatic interests lying in the areas of culture and sexuality. She is currently the Gender & Conflict Thematic Manager with the Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development (ACORD).
Kenyatta University
Dr. Linda A. Musumba is the current acting dean of the School of Law, Kenyatta University. Linda holds a PhD in Law from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom and a Masters in Law in Development from the University of Warwick United Kingdom.
Linda is working towards achieving professorship status and is involved in teaching, researching and publishing particularly in constitutional law, right-based discourses and legal theory. She is an active member of Kenya’s civil society and is a strong believer in the movement of citizens from the periphery of governance to the centre, where they rightly belong.
Okumba Miruka is an international consultant with expertise on gender mainstreaming, strategic planning, training, research and documentation. He has consulted for various national and international non-governmental organizations as well as United Nations agencies in Africa and beyond.
Miruka is a well known scholar on Oral Literature with various books in use in secondary schools and universities. He has also written various training manuals on gender mainstreaming, gender based violence and facilitation skills. Miruka has also worked as a special correspondent on culture, gender and literary issues for leading Kenyan newspapers.
He is a founder member of Men for Gender Equality Now, the premier movement of men combating gender based violence in Kenya.
EASSI
Marren Akatsa-Bukachi is the executive director Executive Director of the Eastern Africa Sub-Regional Support Initiative for Advancement of Women (EASSI). EASSI is a women’s rights organisation spearheading advocacy for change on international women's instruments and covers Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda. Marren works on issues of peace, reproductive health, young women's leadership and advocacy against female genital mutilation.
Marren has skills in research, training, advocacy, and human resource and has more than 20 years in development sector. She has wide exposure to multi-cultural environment, wide experience in working with donors, NGOs and government and vast experience working in different East Africa countries.
Marren has previously worked with the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Nairobi, the Institute for Education in Democracy, Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) and the Ministry of Culture and Social Services.
Africa IDP Voice
Joseph Chilengi is the Executive Director of Africa Internally Displaced Persons Voice (Africa IDP Voice), a Lusaka, Zambia-based Pan African NGO Working to raise awareness and promote effective protection of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Africa.
He holds qualifications in International Relations, Forced Migration, human rights, defense and Security. He has previously worked for the United Nations System in Uganda, as technical advisor for Refugee micro projects for refugees and Refugee Local integration Officer for Urban Refugees in Zambia.
He has acted as an expert to the African Union Commission, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Network on Social Accountability and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region.
Ann-Charlotte Nilsson is an independent reasearcher, working in Sweden and the United States of America. She works within a framework of human rights and international humanitarian law, and peace and conflict resolution issues, and with focus on issues such as sexual violence against women and children in armed conflict, terrorism and political violence, governance, refugees and internally displaced persons, and ethnicity.
Ann-Charlotte's essays and presentaions on rape and sexual violence against women and children in armed conflict, and the effects of armed conflict on children have covered conflict situations in Colombia, DRC-Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sri Lanka, OPT/Israel, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has written on the International Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and on whether a truth commission would be a workable complement to the national and international justice processes in Rwanda, and I have given lectures on the ICTR Tribunal.
She has a Master's degree in Law from the University of Lund, Sweden, a Bachelor's degree in Social Science from the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and a Master's in Arts degree in International Affairs from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, USA. Between 1994 and 1995 Ann-Charlotte headed the refugee department at Amnesty International in Stockholm, Sweden. She is currently I’m writing a book about children and youth in armed conflict, their human rights, the inter-American human rights system and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and how armed conflict affects children and youth mentally and psychologically.
