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

On Friday May 18th the Centre for Health, Law, and Society, Human Rights Implementation Centre and the FSSL International Development Research Group will co-host a workshop on: 'Global Challenges in Securing Reproductive Rights and the Empowerment of Women and Girls'.

The 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 Bristol University from Law, International Development, Education, Anthropology, Policy, and Health, as well as UN, NHRI and think tank representatives, to share and contextualise various 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.

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

Please find workshop programme below:

Workshop Programme

10.00-10.15: Welcome & Registration

10.15 – 12.15: Panel One: Marriage and 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 and 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)

Carley Bennet (Bristol Against Violence and Abuse)

Dr Jane 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

13.00-14.30: Panel Two: Female Genital Mutilation and Violence Against Women

Mirroring Panel 1, 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 Yahyaoui (Law, NUI Galway)

Dr Mhairi Gibson (Anthropology, Bristol)

Maria Stavropoulou (Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence, Overseas Development Institute)

Dr Sundari Anitha (Health and Social Care, Lincoln)

Chair: Janet Haward (PhD , Anthropology, University of Bristol)

14.30 – 16.00: Breakout Sessions:

Breakout Sessions – Practical workshops related to the themes of the day.

16.00 – 16.15: Break

16.15 – 17.45: Plenary Panel

Les Allamby (Chief Commissioner, Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission)

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)

Dr Abigail Fraser (Department of Population Health Sciences, Bristol)

Chair: Sheelagh McGuinness (Law, Bristol)

17.45: Reception