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DUE DILIGENCE PROJECT SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE - MULTILINGUAL

http://www.duediligenceproject.org/The_Due_Diligence_Project/Survey.html

Public international law mandates States to exercise due diligence to promote, protect and fulfill human rights. This principle is commonly referred to as the “due diligence” principle. The obligation extends to not only preventing human rights abuses by the state and its agents, but also those by non-state actors in the so-called “private realm.” In order to properly address the violence committed against women, particularly by non-state actors, it is imperative that we have a deeper understanding of this obligation. What does it mean to act with “due diligence?”  What exact actions are required? When has this obligation been satisfied? Do the obligations change according to the circumstances? A deeper understanding is needed in order for international monitoring mechanisms to accurately gauge States' compliance with this obligation. States too need guidance on what exact actions are expected in order to track their own progress. 

In the majority of the cases violence is perpetrated by non-state actors, for example by a close male relative or intimate partner. In fact, the most common form of violence experienced by women globally is intimate partner violence. It is estimated that one in three women experiences violence in her lifetime. Situations of armed conflicts constitute another context where women are increasingly experiencing violence at the hands of non-state actors, such as paramilitary and militia groups. It is for instance estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, that between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped in Bosnia during the conflict in the early 1990s, and that around 200,000 women and girls were raped during the armed conflict in Bangladesh in 1971. 

Traditionally the State was only held accountable for violations of human rights committed by its agents.  By extending accountability for acts of violence perpetrated by non-state actors to the State, public international law recognizes that violence against women, whether committed by State or non-State actors constitutes human rights violations. This also means that the State has the obligation to enter the so-called ‘private sphere’ where most instances of violence against women take place. This is a sphere from which the State had excluded itself, preferring to limit instead only to the public sphere. Hence the concept of due diligence has helped rupture the artificial “public/private sphere” divide, as well as State/non-State actor dichotomy.
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PROJECT DIRECTORS

Janine Moussa - USA

Janine Moussa is a human rights lawyer, with a specialization in gender and women's rights. Her areas of specialty include the international human rights framework, equality and non-discrimination and violence against women. Her previous experience includes working with NGOs, academic institutions, and inter-governmental organizations, including most recently with the United Nations where she worked as senior program officer on violence against women for the Division for the Advancement of Women (UNDAW, now part of UN Women) and previously the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS).  Janine has lived and worked abroad including in Lebanon where she spent two years working as a refugee aid worker; and in Malaysia where she spent three years traveling the region training and advocating for the full implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Zarizana Abdul Aziz - Malaysia

Zarizana Abdul Aziz is a human rights lawyer. She was President of the Women’s Crisis Centre (now Women’s Centre for Change) in Malaysia where she provided legal and emotional support to victims of violence against women. Zarizana was subsequently involved in legal reform in the area of violence against women, gender equality, family law and religious laws in Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and East Timor as well as training of lawyers, civil society advocates, religious scholars government officials in the said areas. She served as an expert in the Expert Group Meeting on Good Practices pursuant to the United Nations Secretary-General in-depth study on all forms of violence against women in addressing violence against women (UN General Assembly resolution 58/185) and as consultant for various other inter-governmental and international organizations. Zarizana also served as an elected Malaysian Bar Council member (the statutory self-regulatory body of all lawyers in Malaysia) and co-chairperson of the Human Rights Committee of the Bar Council. Most recently, she was shortlisted for the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women in Law and Practice. Zarizana is presently chairperson of Women Living Under Muslim Laws, an international solidarity network.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Pramila Patten, Expert, UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, from Mauritius.

Cees Flinterman, Expert, UN Human Rights Committee of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, from the Netherlands.

Charlotte Bunch, Professor, Founding Director and Senior Scholar, Center for Women's Global Leadership, Rutgers University, USA.

Hillary Charlesworth, Professor, Centre for International Governance and Justice, Australian National University, Australia.

Kamala Chandrakirana, UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women in Law and Practice, from Indonesia.

* Members of the advisory committee serve in their independent and individual capacities.

PROJECT PARTNERS

COLETTE DE TROY -  Belgium

Director, European Women’s Lobby Observatory on Violence Against Women

A sociologist and criminologist by profession, Collete joined the EWL in 1998 to work on violence against women and today heads its Observatory, bringing together VAW experts from 30 European countries.  She has managed transnational projects such as the V-Day Stop Rape Project and awareness campaigns on sex trafficking in 14 countries.  Colette has worked as co-director of an information services cooperative on women in Europe, consultant for the European Commission on training and employment of migrant women, director of a Brussels-based grassroots NGO for young migrant women, researcher on Belgian prisons and director of the University of Montreal’s Criminology Program in Adult Education.

NORAIDA ENDUT -  Malaysia

Senior Lecturer, Women’s Development Research Centre (KANITA), Universiti Sains Malaysia

Noraida Endut is Senior Lecturer at the Women’s Development Research Centre (KANITA), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). Her academic and research interests are in law and women issues. She is currently involved in various research projects, the majority of which looks into the issue of violence against women and women’s access to law and justice. She is also a lead researcher in an ongoing inter-institutional research collaboration looking into the impact of polygamous marriage on Muslim family lives. Noraida has published articles and monographs on the issues of intervention in domestic violence cases, legal pluralism and its relation to marriage and divorce, women’s access to the legal system in Malaysia and guardianship law and its impact on the rights of Muslim women in Malaysia. Her other publication relates to tertiary education issues such as students’ learning behaviour and thinking techniques.  Noraida is also currently the Deputy Director of KANITA.

YASMINE ERGAS - USA

Associate Director, Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University

Yasmine Ergas is an Adjunct Associate Professor of International Law and International Human Rights Law at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) of Columbia University. She is currently engaged in a study on The Transnationalization of Everyday Life, Human Rights and the Dilemmas of International Law, which examines such issues as the emergent market in reproductive surrogacy. She has served on the staff of the Social Science Research Council and as a consultant to leading international organizations, including the OECD and UNESCO.

JULIE GOLDSCHEID - USA

Professor of Law, City University of New York (CUNY), USA

Julie Goldscheid is a Professor of Law at CUNY School of Law, where she teaches subjects including contracts, civil procedure, lawyering, and gender equality.  She writes and speaks widely about gender equality, with a particular focus on gender-based violence and economic equality. Before joining the CUNY faculty, she held positions including Acting Legal Director at Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund) where she  spearheaded that organization’s legal work to end violence against women, including defending the constitutionality of the civil rights remedy of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act before the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Morrison.  She subsequently served as General Counsel of Safe Horizon, a leading victim assistance, advocacy, and violence prevention organization.  She has been active in bar association committees and task forces addressing gender equality and gender violence.

HOMA HOODFAR - Canada

Professor of Anthropology, Concordia University, Montrea

Homa Hoodfar’s primary research and expertise lies in legal and political anthropology. She examines the intersection of political economy; gender and development; and citizenship rights in Muslim contexts. She has extensively studied survival and empowerment strategies in those communities marginalised by legal constraints particularly in the area of family law and citizenship in Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, and in Canada’s Muslim community. She has  written extensively on reproductive health policies, their discursive justifications, and their impact on women’s lives. Dr. Hoodfar has also been actively involved in Women Living Under Muslim Laws Network since 1980s. Her publications include, Homa Hoodfar & Mona Tajali, Electoral Politics: Making Quotas work for women, Women Living Under Muslim Laws (London, 2011);  Sajida Alvi & Sheila McDonough (eds.), The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates, Canadian Scholars’ Press (Toronto, 2003). Between Marriage and the Market, Berkeley University of California Press (1997); and numerous articles on her different research project including women and family law and citizenship in the Middle East.

SARA HOSSAIN - Bangladesh

Barrister, Supreme Court of Bangladesh

Sara Hossain mainly practices in the areas of constitutional, public interest and family law, since 1992. She is a partner at the law firm of Dr. Kamal Hossain and Associates responsible for, among others, pro bono work. Sara is associated with several legal aid and human rights groups nationally and internationally. She is currently serving as Honorary Director of the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Service Trust. She is also Chairperson of Bangladesh’s pioneering a member of the Dhaka-based human rights organization Ain o Salish Kendra. Internationally, Sara is, among others, a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Member, of the Human Rights Committee of the International Law Association (ILA), Member of the Advisory Committee of the Women’s International Coalition on Gender Justice (WICG). Sara’s recent cases relevant to gender equality have been on challenges to government inaction regarding extra judicial penalties in the name of ‘fatwa’ in traditional dispute resolution processes, on the practice of forced veiling, on forced marriage, and on sexual harassment. Sara has also published several articles on, inter alia, the issues of gender, sexual violence and so-called crimes of ‘honour’.

AFAF JABIRI - Jordan

Senior Advisor, Academy for Educational Development

Afaf has 16 years of experience in leading human rights initiatives and defending neglected groups such as migrants, refugees, women, and disabled persons throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa.  She has been a regional director of Karama, a movement against violence against women that she has established in nine countries in the region; director of the Shelter and Women’s Aid Centre in Jordan; and head of a program for refugee women and children for Care International/UNHCR in Jordan.  She is currently a member of the Central Council of the Jordanian Women’s Union and of a number of regional women’s networks, as well as a representative for the region at theGlobal Campaign for Ratification of the CEDAW-Optional Protocol.

MADHU MEHRA - India

Executive Director, Partners for Law in Development (PLD)

Madhu Mehra (India) is a feminist lawyer, a founding member and Executive Director of Partners for Law in Development (PLD), a legal resource group working in the fields of social justice and women’s rights in India. She works primarily in India, South Asia and the Asia Pacific, in programming, training, research, and policy advocacy; engaging as well with the international human rights system. Her fields of expertise are: CEDAW and international human rights law; feminist and critical legal perspectives in law and rights based programming; Her work in respect of women’s rights has been intersectional, taking into account the impact of class, poverty/ development, ethnic, caste, cultural identity politics and sexuality, and has published on these themes. Her regional engagements are through the Asia Pacific Forum for Women, Law and Development (APWLD) and International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW-AP). She undertook the review of 15 years of the mandate of the of the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. 

SALLY ENGLE MERRY - USA

Professor of Anthropology, Law and Society, New York University

A distinguished writer, lecturer, and researcher of women’s human rights, vernacularization, and numerical rankings in global governance, Sally is the current president-elect of the American Ethnological Society, a board member of the Association of Political and Legal Anthropology, and a recipient of both the President’s Award of the American Anthropological Association and the J.I. Staley Prize of the School of Advanced Research for her 2006 book, Human Rights and Gender Violence.  She recently authored another book, Gender Violence: A Cultural Perspective (2009), and justfinished a three-year term chairing the AAA Executive Board’s Committee on Scientific Communication. 

ALDA FACIO MONTEJO - Costa Rica

Director, Women, Gender and Justice Program, United Nations Latin American Institute for Crime Prevention (ILANUD)

Alda is a jurist, writer, lecturer, and international expert on women’s human rights, gender violence, and gender-based legal analysis.  She is also the founder and first director of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice in the International Criminal Court and co-founder of the Women Human Rights Education Institute at the University of Toronto.  Her work at ILANUD focuses on the elimination of gender inequality and violence against women from a criminal and human rights perspective; research on the different forms of discrimination against women in laws and legal doctrines; and training programs for judges, police, lawyers and women’s groups about the incorporation of gender-sensitive perspective in legal analysis and contexts. 

TENESHA MYRIE - Jamaica

University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica

Tenesha Myrie served as consultant to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) Caribbean Office, the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition and the Jamaica AIDS Support for Life. She has carried out extensive research on issues affecting women in the English-speaking Caribbean and is the author of several reports dealing with gender-based violence, HIV/AIDS and constitutional reform in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Tenesha holds the Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honors and also the Bachelor of Arts in Management Studies and Literatures in English with First Class Honors from the University of the West Indies. She completed professional training at the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica and will be called to the Jamaican Bar in November 2011. Tenesha is an adjunct tutor at the Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica.

HANAN ABOU GHOUSH MUADDI - Palestine

Director of Advocacy and Documentation, Women Center for Legal Aid and Counseling

Hanan has worked with the Women Center for Legal Aid and Counseling since 2004.  As its current director of advocacy and documentation, she supervises and monitors the department and evaluates its programs, and represents the department at the administrative committee.  Previously, she has been coordinator of the Union of Health Work in the Ramallah District for the Women’s Health Program, and before that she worked as a nurse.  Today, she researches and lectures around the world on the situation of Palestinian women, specifically in terms of gender equality gaps, gender-based violence, women’s rights, and women in decision-making positions in the European Commission.

VRINDA NARAIN - Canada

Assistant Professor, McGill University, Canada

Vrinda Narain is an Assistant Professor at McGill University, jointly appointed in the Faculty of Law and the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies (IGSF). Vrinda Narain teaches constitutional law in the Faculty of Law and is the Chair of the Women’s Studies Programme at the IGSF. She is the author of two books, Reclaiming the Nation: Muslim Women and the Law in India (University of Toronto Press, 2008) and Gender and Community: Muslim Women's Rights in India (University of Toronto Press, 2001).

MARIA NASSALI - Uganda

Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA), Uganda

Ann Marie Nassali holds a Doctor Legum in Human Rights from the Center for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. She has a Master in Law and Development from the University of Warwick, UK, majoring in development, human rights and gender.  Maria mergers both academic competence with pragmatism of the NGO sector given current employment at the Chief Executive Officer of FIDA-U: The Uganda Association of Women Lawyers. She has a proven track record of resuscitating organizations for strategic focus, as has been the case with Law Development Centre, Legal Aid Clinic, Kituo Cha Katiba, East African Law Society and currently with FIDA-Uganda She has served as a Chairpersons of FIDA-Uganda, Parents Teachers Association for the Uganda School of the Deaf and Advisory Council to the USAID Great Horn of Africa Initiative, as well as a board member of many organizations, including East Africa Law Society and Urgent Action Fund-Africa. 

GEETA RAMASESHAN - India

Constitutional, Family, and Criminal Lawyer; Special Prosecutor, Central Bureau of Investigation

Geeta is a lawyer practising in India in the area of Constitutional law, criminal law and family law. She has worked extensively in the area of human rights, women’s human rights, and child’s rights. She works pro bono for women living with HIV/AIDS, survivors of custodial violence, women and children who are survivors of sexual violence and minority groups that face discrimination. She is a special prosecutor for the Central Bureau of Investigation. She has been a Heinz Fellow on comparative law, from the University of Pittsburgh and an Eisenhower fellow on Human rights, public Interest Litigation and Justice. Geeta has conducted many workshops for judges, lawyers and NGO’s in the region on International Human Rights treaties and is a resource person for IWRAW ASIA PACIFIC. She has written extensively in newspapers and journals on legal issues affecting women and is associated with many national campaigns on legislations relating to women and children. She is currently a guest faculty at the Asian College of Journalism where she teaches media law.

ZOYA JUREIDINI ROUHANA - Lebanon

Director, KAFA (enough) Violence & Exploitation

Zoya is founding member and director of KAFA (enough) Violence & Exploitation, Beirut, Lebanon. She is also the founding member and General Coordinator of the Lebanese Council to Resist Violence against Women (LECORVAW) / founded in March 1997; founding member and General Coordinator of the Arab Women's Court - an Arab network to resist violence against women. Zoya is responsible for organizing the first public hearing on violence against women in the Arab world named: Arab Women's Court, as a preparatory activity for Beijing Conference; she is Secretary of Women Affairs at the Secours Populaire Libanais; member of the executive committee of League of Lebanese Women’s Rights; and social and economic research assistant at the Consultation & Research Institute.

KATHLEEN STAUDT - USA

Professor of Political Science, University of Texas, El Paso

Kathleen (Kathy) Staudt, PhD (University of Wisconsin, 1976) is Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at El Paso, located at the U.S.-Mexico border.  In 2008-9, she was Investigadora Visitante at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.  Kathy teaches courses on public policy, democracy, borders, and women, power and politics.  She has published many articles, chapters, and books, the most recent of which include Violence and Activism at the Border: Gender, Fear and Everyday Life in Ciudad Juárez (Austin: University of Texas Press 2008), Human Rights Along the U.S.-Mexico Border: Gendered Violence and Insecurity, with Tony Payan and Z. Anthony Kruszewski, and Cities and Citizenship at the U.S.-Mexico Border: The Paso del Norte Metropolitan Region, with César Fuentes and Julia Monarrez Fragoso.  Kathy is actively engaged in community organizations, including cross-border NGOs.

KAREN STEFISZYN - South Africa

Programme Manager, Gender Unit, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria

Karen Stefiszyn is the Programme Manager of the Gender Unit at the Centre for Human Rights, at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.  Her work involves research and writing, human rights education, and advocacy with a focus on women's human rights in Africa, and in particular, the implementation of regional and international instruments for the promotion and protection of women's rights.  Much of her research has explored the violations of women's rights in Africa in the context of the HIV pandemic with a particular focus on the sexual and reproductive health rights of women living with HIV.  Karen has also worked as a Human Rights Specialist at UNIFEM in New York and has undertaken projects as a consultant for the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and UN Women. She holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Western Ontario, in Canada, and a M.St. in international human rights law from the University of Oxford in the UK.

GENOVEVA SPASSOVA TISHEVA - Bulgaria

Director, Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation; Women’ s Human Rights Training Institute

Genoveva currently coordinates the Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation’s legal projects and research.  She has drafted gender equality legislation in Bulgaria, reports on the government’s gender policies and human socio-economic rights, alternative reports to UN bodies, and Bulgaria reports to the Social Watch Coalition.  Her work focuses on gender-based employment discrimination, violence against women, and reproductive rights.  She has directed the Bulgarian Centre for Human Rights and has acted as legal advisor to Machinoexport Ltd., member of the Network of Independent Legal Experts on Gender Equality to the European Commission, and regional coordinator of the Balkan Human Rights Network’ sex traffic prevention research.

VIVIENNE WEE - Singapore

Institute for Women’s Empowerment (IWE), Hong Kong

Vivienne Wee is an anthropologist who has done extensive research on issues of gender, power, religion, and ethno-nationalism, especially in Indonesia. She taught at the National University of Singapore (1984-1994), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2000) and City University of Hong Kong (2000-2010). In Singapore, she is a founding member of the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) and was Executive Director of the Centre for Environment, Gender and Development (ENGENDER) in 1994-1999. She has co-initiated multi-country programmes, notably as Director of the Research Programme Consortium on Women’s Empowerment in Muslim Contexts (2006-9), funded by the UK Government’s Department for International Development, as well as the programme Women Reclaiming and Re-defining Culture, supported by the MDG3 Fund of the Dutch Government and jointly coordinated by Women Living Under Muslim Laws and the Institute for Women’s Empowerment (IWE). She is currently a researcher at IWE and Visiting Scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Gender Research Centre, Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies).

INSTITUTIONAL COLLABORATORS

Northeastern University School of Law - USA

Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE), School of Law

The Project is currently hosted at and supported by Northeastern University School of Law (NUSL) in Boston, USA. NUSL developed a practical learning education model in 1968. Central to it is the Cooperative Legal Education Program, which allows students to graduate with four, 11-week, full-time jobs. NUSL is also known for its human rights work and the project is placed within the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE). NUSL has agreed to provide support for and collaborate with the implementers of the project.

Columbia University - USA

Institute for the Study of Human Rights

The Institute for the Study of Human Rights was established in 1978 at Columbia University and was the first academic centre in the world to be founded on an interdisciplinary commitment to the study of human rights. ISHR is committed to its three core goals of providing excellent human rights education to Columbia students, fostering innovative interdisciplinary academic research, and offering its expertise in capacity building to human rights leaders, organizations, and universities around the world. ISHR’s connections to the Global South, particularly through the Human Rights Advocates Program and its alumni, are unrivaled. ISHR’s emphasis on inter-disciplinary, engagement and globalism draw from and complement the strengths that have long characterized intellectual life at Columbia.

Universiti sains malaysia - Malaysia

Women’s Development Research Centre (KANITA)

KANITA  is a research centre set up by the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and is committed to research, advocacy and community engagement utilising and promoting a gender and social equality framework. It strives to impact in the academe, the state, women and the society at large as well as offering high quality graduate studies in the field of gender studies. Its focus areas are health; policy and law; sustainable development; economic and social development; leadership and governance; and education and culture.

UniversitY of pretoria - South Africa

Centre for Human Rights (CHR), School of Law

CHR, based at the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, is both an academic department and a non-governmental organisation. CHR works towards human rights education in Africa, a greater awareness of human rights, the wide dissemination of publications on human rights in Africa, and the improvement of the rights of women, people living with HIV, indigenous peoples, sexual minorities and other disadvantaged or marginalised persons or groups across the continent. Over the years, the Centre has positioned itself in an unmatched network of practising and academic lawyers, national and international civil servants and human rights practitioners across the entire continent, with a specific focus on human rights law in Africa, and international development law in general.  In 2006, the CHR was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education.

PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS

KAFA (ENOUGH) VIOLENCE & EXPLOITATION - Lebanon

Established in 2005 by a group of multi-disciplinary professionals and human rights activists, KAFA is a non-profit, non-political, non-confessional civil society organization committed to gender-equality and non-discrimination, and the advancement of women’s and children’s human rights. KAFA envisions a society where all its citizens live free of violence and exploitation and where they have equal access to opportunities and results and their human rights are respected, protected and enjoyed. Its mission is to work towards eradicating gender-based violence and exploitation of women and children through legal and policy reform, influencing public opinion, and empowering women and children. KAFA’s guiding principles are those of the universality of human rights and the participation and inclusion of all target groups and marginalized people in our endeavors.