Monday, March 14th, 2016
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Sociology Lounge, Room 6112
Violence against Women in Egypt is a crime that is committed and has been committed for many decades. However, mobilization on combating these crimes has increased in the past 5 years, where discourse on this issue has transformed from being a taboo to an issue of public opinion. Feminist groups and organizations have been providing several intervention mechanisms for these crimes, including the provision of support services for survivors of these crimes, such as the provision of legal, psychological and medical support, in addition to pressuring the state to make interventions to eradicate these crimes and hold perpetrators accountable. Despite the issuance of a national strategy to combat violence against women in May 2015, these crimes still run rampant and state interventions lack an institutional holistic approach in tackling them. The concerned panel, conducted by Nazra for Feminist Studies, will shed light on the intervention mechanisms employed to combat these crimes, challenges faced and vision in ensuring that a holistic approach is enacted.
Speakers:
Mozn Hassan is the founder and Executive Director of Nazra for Feminist Studies (www.nazra.org) since December 2007. Nazra is a youth initiative to integrate gender and feminism in the Egyptian society Her research interests range from combating violence against women, to history of feminism in Egypt, to early child marriage. She has an MA from the American University in Cairo with a thesis on “Legal Interpretations to the Right to Divorce and Polygamy and the Egyptian Feminist Movement”. Ms. Hassan serves as Egypt advisor with the Global Fund for Women and as UNDP project formulation consultant with the project “Combating Female Genital Mutilation”. She is also a consultant with African Women’s Development and Communication Network- FEMNET in a study of Promoting African Women’s Economic Empowerment through Gender Responsive Trade Agreement. She is also a member of the Regional Experts’ Committee of the Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Her forthcoming published articles include Islamic interpretations for women’s issues and the availability to create Islamic feminism movement, Muslim brotherhood case study” Democracy Review and a research on Early Child Marriage with Women Living Under Muslim Laws- Africa and Middle East Office. Ms. Hassan received the inaugural Charlotte Bunch Human Rights Defender Award on April 17th, 2013 at the Global Fund for Women’s 25th Anniversary Gala.
Amal Elmohandes works as the Director of the Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD) Program at Nazra for Feminist Studies, a program which provides legal, psychological and medical support to WHRDs in Egypt, in addition to focusing on knowledge production related to WHRDs. Amal has engaged in the issue of sexual violence in the Egyptian public sphere, due to it being one of the main issues that Nazra works on. She is also a member of the Emergency and Urgent Responses Committee of the Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Amal obtained a Bachelor Degree in Arts from the American University in Cairo, where she majored in English and Comparative Literature, and a M.Phil. in Gender and Women’s Studies from Trinity College Dublin. Before joining Nazra, she worked at the Bi-National Fulbright Commission in Egypt under the Community College Initiative.
This event is free and open tot he public. It is sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics, Graduate Center, CUNY.
