Role of Leadership in Promotion of Human Rights in Africa: Future Prospects and Obstacles

The UNESCO Chair & Institute of Comparative Human Rights invites you to a public lecture by His Excellency António Mascarenhas Monteiro, former President of the Republic of Cape Verde on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 at 12:30 p.m. in the Student Union Room 304 A/B. 

As the first multi-party elected President of the Republic of Cape Verde, His Excellency played a crucial role in making Cape Verde one of the more viable democracies on the continent of Africa. He served as President from 1991-2001 and during his term in office, was active in the international arena as well. He was Chairman of the Third Conference on Regional System of Human Rights Protection in Africa and Europe and participated in the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Goodwill mission to Angola following the country’s first free elections in 1992.

In 1993, he was Chairman of the Colloquium on Constitutional Transition in Africa, held at the Catholic University of Louvain, and from 1994 to 1997 he served as President of the Inter-State Committee for Struggle Against Drought in Sahel (CILSS). In his role as Deputy President of the OAU Ad-Hoc Committee for Southern Africa, he attended the signing of the Lusaka Protocol on Peace in Angola in 1994. He was elected President of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) in 1998.

Lecture is co-sponsored by the African American Cultural Center.

For more information, please call 486.0647 or visit www.unescochair.uconn.edu

Kay Warren, Distinguished professor of anthropology at Brown University will present the Robert G. Mead, Jr. lecture entitled, “When Numbers Count: The Practice of Combating Human Trafficking from Colombia to Japan.”

Transnational Women’s Movement Colloquium

Speakers:
Manisha Desai, Amanda Gouws & Zakia Zalime
Friday, November 2, 2007
2:30 – 5:00 PM

Women’s Center, Student Union Room 421
Reception following the Colloquium
For more information, click here

Manisha Desai, Director of Women’s Studies at the University of Connecticut will give an introduction on “Notes on a Transnational Perspective.” 

Amanda Gouws, Professor of Political Science at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, will speak on “Changing Opportunity Structures:  The Women’s Movement in South Africa.” 

 Zakia Salime, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University will speak on, “The Subjects of Democracy:  Women’s Perspectives on War and Reform in the Middle East.”

The colloquium is organized by the Women’s Studies Program and Co-sponsored by the Institute for African American Studies, Institute for Asian American Studies, the Human Rights Institute, the Department of Political Science, the Institute for Puerto Rican and Latino Studies, the Department of Sociology, the UNESCO Chair and Comparative Human Rights Program, and the Women’s Center. 

In addtion to the two films on Wednesday, the campus group “Love146,” which advocates to end child sex slavery and exploitation, is sponsoring a screening of Stop the Traffick tonight, October 15, at 8 PM in Konover Auditorium at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.  Stop the Traffick exposes the aftereffects of the Khmer Rouge’s regime and genocide in Cambodia which has left children vulnerable to exploitation through the sex trade.

A couple of important human rights documentaries are being screened on campus this week:  Lumo, and Walking the Line.  The producers of each film will be on campus as well for discussion and Q & A. 

Lumo is a documentary about a young Congolese woman on an uncretain path to recovery at a unique hospital for rape survivors. 

The film will be shown on Wednesday, October 17 at 7:30 PM in St. Thomas Aquinas, the UConn Catholic Campus Ministry.  Co-director and producer of the film Nelson Walker III, will lead a Q & A session following the film. 

Lumo has won numerous awards and aired on PBS in September.  More information on the film is available here. 

See also the recent New York Times article on the brutality of rape in the Congo. 

Also on Wednesday, October 17, there will be two events surrounding the documentary, Walking the Line, which explores U.S. vigilantes, undocumented migrants, and human rights. 

At 4 PM in Batterson Multipuporse Room, there will be a meet and greet with the film’s producers, Jeremy Levine & Landon Van Soest.

At 7 PM in the Andre Schenker Lecture Hall (behind Montieth Hall) there will be a screening of the film followed by discussion on U.S. border protection and human rights with the film makers. 

The Rainbow Center on the 4th floor of the Student Union is offering free anti-homophobia t-shirts in honor of National Coming Out Day, so if you’re on campus, definitely stop by and pick one up. 

UConn Libraries are also celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History Month throughout October, with a resource guide on GLBTQ materials available at UConn. 

The Dodd Research Center has a significant number of archival materials dealing with LGBTQ themes:

The Alternative Press Collection:  Large collection of non-mainstream newspapers, journals, magazines, pamphlets, and other materials, including a significant number of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer liberation publications from the 1960s to the present.   GLBTQ magazines and newspapers in the Alternative Press Collection include Bay Windows, The Body Politic, Christopher Street, Fag Rag, Gay Sunshine, Lesbian Connection, and many more.  Check for other titles in HOMER. 

Foster Gunnison Papers: Contain letters, manuscripts, photographs and printed materials which document the homophile and gay liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

The first week of October is jam-packed with Human Rights events at UConn!  Please join us for the following important events on campus!

All events are free and open to the public.

Monday, October 1, 2007

The Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights is being awarded on Monday, October 1 at 11 AM. Mental Disability Rights International and the Center for Justice and Accountability are this year’s recipients! The ceremony will take place in the plaza outside of the Dodd Research Center. (Rain location: Rome Ballroom, South Campus) Click here for more information.

Following the Thomas J. Dodd Prize for International Justice and Human Rights, the Dodd Research Center will host a special event including readings from the book, Letters from Nuremberg:  My Father’s Narrative of a Quest for Justice, by members of the Dodd family with a book signing by Senator Chris Dodd and Lary Bloom, on Monday, October 1 at 1:30pm in Konover Auditorium, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. 

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

On Tuesday, October 2 at 4 PM, Harold Koh, Dean of the Yale Law School, will give the Raymond & Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture, “Repairing Our Human Rights Reputation.” The talk will be held in Konover Auditorium of the Dodd Research Center.

Dean Koh is a leading expert on international law and a prominent advocate of human and civil rights. From 1998 to 2001, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.  Before joining Yale, he practiced law at Covington and Burling and at the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice.  He has argued before the United States Supreme Court and testified before the U.S. Congress more than twenty times. He has been awarded ten honorary doctorates and two law school medals and has received more than twenty five awards for his human rights work. He is recipient of the 2005 Louis B. Sohn Award from the American Bar Association and the 2003 Wolfgang Friedmann Award from Columbia Law School for his lifetime achievements in International Law. He is author of eight books, including Transnational Legal Problems (with H. Steiner and D. Vagts) and The National Security Constitution, which won the American Political Science Association’s award as the best book on the American Presidency.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Lecture by Ela Gandhi (co-sponsored with the Asian American Studies Institute) at the Student Union Theatre, 4:30 pm.

Ela Ghandi, granddaughter of Mahatma Ghandi, has carried her family’s legacy and put those beliefs into practice for six decades of activism in South Africa.  During apartheid, she was banned from political activism and subjected to house arrest for nine years. In South Africa’s Parliament from 1994 to 2004, Ms. Gandhi aligned herself with the African National Congress party and represented the area of her birth in the KwaZulu Natal province near Durban. She founded the Gandhi Development Trust, developed a 24-hour program against domestic violence, and currently serves as Chancellor of Durban University of Technology. This event is free and open to the public, and sponsored by the Asian American Studies Institute, Asian American Cultural Center, Jain Center of Greater Hartford, Women’s Studies Program, Women’s Center, UNESCO Chair and Institute of Comparative Human Rights, India Studies Program, and the Department of History.