Inaugural guest lecture on "lived rights"

February 9, 2006

Author: IWRP

INAUGURAL GUEST LECTURE ON LIVED RIGHTS

Dr. Sima Samar

February 9, 2006, 7:00-9:00pm

(Reception following)

Anne and Murray Fraser Building, (UVic Law School), Room 159



Dr. Sima Samar, an internationally recognized human rights advocate, will deliver the inaugural University of Victoria guest lecture on "lived rights". Dr. Sima Samar is the former deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan, current chair of the Independent Afghan Human Rights Commission and was recently appointed as the UN Special Rapporteur on Sudan. From 1994 to 2001, Dr. Samar worked undercover in defiance of the brutally repressive Taliban to provide health care for women and educational opportunities for girls. Through the Shuhada Organization, a non-governmental, non profit organization she established in 1989, Dr Samar has opened four hospitals, 10 health clinics and numerous schools for Afghan girls and women. She was a recipient, in 2004, of a Profiles in Courage Award for being "an international symbol of the steadfast courage required to demand basic human rights for women and girls in Afghanistan".

Dr. Samar is being hosted by the International Women's Rights Project (IWRP) of the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria.



"Lived Rights" will become an annual lecture hosted by the IWRP at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria to acknowledge and learn more about the courageous, and transformative, work being done to turn words on the pages of constitutions and treaties into positive changes in the daily lives of disadvantaged people.

Sponsored by Telus and Monk Office, this event is being organized by Trudi Brown, Chair of the Board of Governors of the University of Victoria and Board Vice Chair, Gail Flitton, with IWRP co-director Susan Bazilli and law student co-chairs, Sofi Khwaja and Karen Penate.




Dr Samar will also speak at the IWRP-organized National Forum on Women's Activism in Constitutional and Democratic Reform in Ottawa on February 14, 2006 funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the International Development and Research Council (IDRC). For more information, please visit www.adhoc25.org.