Americas Director

With a recent referendum in Colombia leading to voters rejecting a peace deal that would have ended decades of war with FARC, we FEATURE Erika Guevara-Rosas. Erika is a feminist lawyer and human rights activist, who currently serves as the Americas Programme Director at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. She is responsible for leading the organization’s human rights work across the region. Erika also served as Legal/Protection Officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), managing complex operations in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Panama and Venezuela, mainly in border areas with war-affected populations. Media includes: UNHCR, York University, Centro de Estudios Universitarios Londres, Foreign Policy in Focus, IPS.

Attorney

With the Supreme Court opening a new term despite the absence of a ninth judge, and the resulting denial of President Obama's immigration case, we FEATURE Tanya Acker. Tanya is a practicing attorney, media consultant, television commentator, and one of three judges on the CBS program Hot Bench. Working as a Bristow Fellow, Tanya drafted Supreme Court briefs and helped prepare the Solicitor General and other attorneys for oral arguments, including those before the High Court. Tanya worked in the private sector, including at the law firms of Latham & Watkins and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Her work spanned a broad variety of cases, including state Supreme Court matters, corporate litigation involving public and private entities, and various constitutional cases. Media includes: MSNBC, CNN, FOX, CBS News, Larry King Live, Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell, Extra, Great Britain's GMTV, Sky News.

Co-Founder

The twitter account @alabedbana has been live tweeting the everyday violence and destruction in Aleppo, Syria from the voice of seven-year-old girl Bana al-Abed. To discuss the Syrian war and it's affect on the civilians of Syria, we FEATURE Mouna Ghanem. Mouna is the Coordinator of the Syrian Women’s Forum for Peace. She is also Vice-President of the Syrian political movement Building the Syrian State. A senior gender advisor with extensive experience in the Arab region, Mouna worked for more than a decade as the Deputy Representative for UNFPA in Syria and chaired the Syrian Commission for Family Affairs. Media includes: Hunasotak.

Founder and Host

In Poland, thousands of women have gone on strike to protest a proposed ban on abortions in the country. To discuss, we FEATURE Françoise Girard. Girard is President of the International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC) and a leading expert on women’s health, human rights, sexuality, and HIV and AIDS. From 2006 to 2011, Girard served as Director of the Public Health Program at the Open Society Foundations, where she was also Regional Director for Central and Eastern Europe and Haiti in the 1990s. From 1999 to 2003, she was Senior Program Officer for International Policy at IWHC, and thereafter a consultant for IWHC, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and DAWN, a network of women’s rights activists from the global South. Media includes: Reuters, Guardian, BBC Radio, NPR and CBC/Radio-Canada.