Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the world's leading provider of news and information, and the International Herald Tribune, the global edition of the New York Times, will co-host a high-level women's rights conference in London on December 4-5, 2012.
Trust Women Conference: Putting the rule of law behind women's rights will bring together women and men from the legal, financial, government, corporate and non-profit sectors to drive pragmatic action to fight violence against women and other injustices including trafficking, domestic slavery and discrimination.
"In many countries, basic human rights are systematically denied to women'', said Monique Villa, chief executive of Thomson Reuters Foundation. 'In others, egregious abuses lie just below the surface -- forced marriage, sex slavery, domestic servitude, to name just a few. Trust Women was created not just to help women know and defend their rights, but also to come up with concrete solutions to some of the biggest issues of our time. Women's rights are absolutely critical to development, social progress and human dignity."
Alison Smale, Executive Editor of the International Herald Tribune said: "For almost three years the IHT had chronicled in its series The Female Factor the rise and rights of women in the early 21st century. Progress has been made but now we want to help women to rise to all the many remaining challenges. The Trust Women Conference is a great way to do that – bringing together successful personalities with those who have yet to make history."
Prominent speakers and advisory board members include Queen Noor of Jordan; Christy Turlington, model, author and founder of Every Mother Counts; Cherie Blair, lawyer and founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women; Kiran Bedi, India's first and highest ranking female police officer; Emma Bonino, founder of No Peace without Justice and vice-president of the Italian Senate; Beth Brook, vice-chair of public policy at Ernst & Young; Dr Sima Samar,Chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission; Nick Kristof, Trust Women board member, New York Times journalist, author and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner; Jimmie Briggs, Journalist and Founder, Man Up Campaign...
''Trust Women as a conference is a unique opportunity to look at the intersection of law, of human rights, of best practices in the world for advancing rights for women and girls, and this is the most important time to be tackling these topics'' , explained Minky Worden, Author, Director of Global Initiatives for Human Rights Watch.
A unique legal framework
The event place the world's most innovative leaders in women's rights in front of the best minds in law, business, media, government and philanthropy, asking people from the private sector to consider how they can leverage their expertise and resources to advance women's rights.
The first day of the conference will explore clashes between "culture" and the law, honing in on concrete strategies to tackle such wrongs as child marriage, female genital mutilation, acid attacks and honour killings. Delegates will explore what the Arab Spring means for women's rights: a disaster or an opportunity?
Day two will be fully dedicated to modern slavery and trafficking, exploring issues including financial inclusion and the corrosive effects of corruption.
Comprised of 350 delegates from around the world – female and male leaders in their fields – the conference will offer a provocative mix of keynote speeches, multimedia, plenary discussions, debates, break-out "action groups" that will take commitments and opportunities to engage online.
This joint venture between the Thomson Reuters Foundation and the IHT reflects their respective efforts to ensure women's issues are covered in the media. The Foundation's TrustLaw Women and the IHT's Female Factor are both global hubs of news and information on women's issues.
The conference's legal framework was inspired by the work 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 work globally by helping lawyers put their professional skills to work for free for non-governmental organisations and social entrepreneurs. It has more than 750 members, of which 250 are law firms and in house legal teams.
For any further information please visit: www.trustwomenconf.com or follow @trustwomenconf on Twitter.
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