Women's Lives, Global Contexts

Senior legal officer for international justice at the Open Society Justice Initiative, Kelly Askin has spent the last 15 years as a legal consultant for international criminal tribunals and special courts addressing mass atrocities in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, East Timor, Cambodia and elsewhere. In this talk, she explains the historical treatment and recent progress in redressing rape as a weapon of war.

Executive director and senior analyst at the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, Dalia Mogahed offers Muslims' attitudes on the Arab Spring revolution, what they want from a new government, the role of religion, and women's rights. Mogahed is co-author of "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think."

This panel discussion explores the issues behind the recent conflict between the Vatican and the leadership community for American sisters. The conversation looks at the contributions of women religious in shaping American Catholic life, the changes they have undergone since Vatican II, and strategies for moving forward. Panelists are Sr. Jane Morrissey, of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Springfield, who is co-founder and executive director of Homework House, Inc. and Sr. Donna Markham, of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, who is vice president of behavioral health services at Catholic Health Partners in Cincinnati and former president of the Leadership Conference of the Women Religious. Virginia Ryan, visiting assistant professor of religious studies at Holy Cross, moderates.

A union organizer for domestic workers in FNV Bondgenoten in the Netherlands, Rebeca Pabon has worked closely with union members to coordinate the campaign for domestic workers' rights in the Netherlands and she serves on the steering committee of the International Domestic Workers Network to campaign for more countries to ratify the International Labour Organization's domestic workers Convention 189.

Civilian anthropologist Patricia Omidian, based in Pakistan and Afghanistan since 1997, speaks about the situation in Afghanistan during the Taliban and after.