Does changing the legal age for marriage reduce the number of forced marriages? How do we find common ground between Sharia law and women’s rights? From owning land or starting a business to running a boardroom – how do we support women’s participation in the economy? And how can global businesses address human trafficking and forced labour in their supply chains?Does changing the legal age for marriage reduce the number of forced marriages?
Two of the world’s most high-profile news and media organisations have announced a joint project aimed at seeking solutions and action to empower women to know and defend their rights. The conference, called the Trust Women Conference: Putting the rule of law behind women’s rights, will be held in London on Dec. 4 and 5.
This groundbreaking partnership between Thomson Reuters Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the world’s biggest news and information provider, and the International Herald Tribune, the global edition of the New York Times, will bring together for the first time some of the world’s best minds in law with experts in the fields of politics, finance, media and civil society.
“In many countries, basic human rights are still systematically denied to women’’, said Monique Villa, CEO of Thomson Reuters Foundation. ‘In others, egregious abuses lie just below the surface -- forced marriage, sex slavery, domestic servitude, to name just a few. We created the Trust Women Conference to come up with concrete solutions and action to tackle some of the biggest issues of our time. Women’s rights are absolutely critical to development, social progress and human dignity.”
The importance of the issue is confirmed by the high profile line-up of speakers at the conference, including Queen Noor of Jordan; author, campaigner and ex-supermodel, Christy Turlington Burns; journalist and author Mariane Pearl, Dutch-Somali politician and activist Ayan Hirshi Ali and Chetna Gala Sinha, founder of India’s Mann Deshi microfinance Bank.
The conference is organised around six themes that aim to dissect and tackle the main reasons women are often considered second class citizens, including modern-day slavery, child marriage, women and financial exclusion, and the enshrinement of women’s rights in national constitutions. Attendees will gain a better understanding of the issues, hearing from those on the frontlines as they discuss and debate the key challenges that women face in accessing their rights. Delegates will take part in "action sessions" that ask them to draw on their own personal and professional expertise to help non-profits and social entrepreneurs scale their innovative ideas.
Queen Noor of Jordan, an adviser who will also speak at the conference, said, “Whilst we've seen considerable gains in some parts of the world, we are also seeing little improvement for women in many conflict-ravaged, climate-ravaged and poverty-ravaged communities around the world where women bear the brunt of hardships. In order to thrive and contribute to their societies, women need to have access to health, financial and legal services. They need to be able to participate in the political lives of their countries. This is what the Trust Women conference is trying to do."
During the conference, two major international awards will be presented. The first will be given to an innovator whose bold thinking and high-impact work enables women to empower themselves, and the second to a journalist who has made a significant contribution to the coverage of women’s rights during 2012.
The conference’s legal framework was inspired by work the Thomson Reuters Foundation is doing with its TrustLaw Connect pro bono legal platform. TrustLaw Connect was launched in 2010 with the aim of spreading pro bono globally by helping lawyers put their professional skills to work for non-governmental organisations and social entrepreneurs. It has more than 935 members, of which 266 are law firms and in house legal teams.
More information can be found here: www.trustwomenconf.com
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