Asia

Bina Agarwal

Bina Agarwal is currently Professor of economics and director, Institute of economic Growth, Unversity of delhi, India. Agarwal has written and researched in areas including land, livelihoods and property rights, environment and development, the political economcy of gender, poverty, and inequality and agriculture and technological change. In 29 years of teaching students as well as government officials, she has focused on the interconnectedness of gender, pover and development.

Women’s Action Against FGM (WAAF)

Address: 2-5-26 Ichigaya Kagacho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-0062, Japan

Tel: +81 3 3235 8266

Fax: +81 3 3235 8267

Contact: Mitsue Ohi

Muslim Women’s Action Forum (MWRAF) (WLUML sister organization in Sri Lanka)

MWRAF strives to empower women to realize their full potential, locating itself in the local as well as the larger socio-political context, challenging given ‘codes and norms’, while addressing emerging issues that directly affect people’s lives. It seeks equity and justice for all women in a society free of violence against women and exploitation of women by all patriarchal structures including the family, society, custom, religion, and the state.

The International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES)

ICES is a renowned international research centre located in Sri Lanka. It is amongst the select few institutions that are both ‘local’ to the global South and ‘international’ in orientation. ICES is in ‘special category’ consultative status with the United Nations ECOSOC. The mission of ICES is “to deepen the understanding of ethnicity, identity politics and conflict, and to foster conditions for an inclusive, just and peaceful society nationally, regionally and globally, through research, publication, dialogue, creative expression and knowledge transfer”.

War Against Rape (WAR)

WAR is a group of committed women and men dedicated to building a sensitised society free from gender-based oppression, discrimination, exploitation and violence. WAR aims to raise awareness about the issues of sexual violence and rape; help the survivors legally, psychologically and medically; punish the perpetrators and improve the laws relating to rape and other forms of sexual abuse and violence.

Women's Action Forum (WAF)

A women's rights organization and has a presence in several cities in Pakistan. It is a non-partisan, non-hierarchical and non-funded organization. It is supportive of all aspects of women's rights and related issues, irrespective of political affiliations, belief system, or ethnicity. Women's Action Forum came into being in Karachi in September 1981. The following year, the Lahore and then the Islamabad Chapters were formed. Some years later, the Peshawar chapter came into being. And in May 2008, a Chapter of WAF started in Hyderabad, in the Province of Sindh.

Shirkat Gah Women’s Resource Centre

Shirkat Gah is a women’s rights organisation based in Lahore, Pakistan, and acts as the regional office (RCO-Asia) of the international network Women Living Under Muslim Laws. It has provided support to women who have been subjected to forced marriages and has organised and campaigned around cases of 'honour killings' of women. It has also documented customary practices, including 'honour crimes', which result in violence against women throughout Pakistan. Shirkat Gah also has legal advice centres, researchers on health/reproductive rights, as well as VAW and equality under the law.

Aurat Foundation

Aurat Foundation has its Head Office in Islamabad, and four regional offices in the provincial capitals (Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta). AF is a civil society organisation working for women’s empowerment and citizens’ rights with the collaboration of citizens’ groups and organisations to provide information, build capacity and undertake advocacy for women’s issues and for good governance in Pakistan.

Applied Social Research Resource Centre (ASR)/ Institute of Women's Studies Lahore (IWSL) – resource centre Lahore

ASR/ IWSL is involved in a variety of academic and activist pursuits including community work, assisting theater and arts groups, producing films, and conducting academic courses. It established IWSL, and held the first women's studies conference in Pakistan. It also established the first feminist press in Pakistan. IWSL is committed to promoting connections between theory and practice in its work and understands that rigorous academic training can inform the ways social justice is sought. Knowledge is seen to have an important role in the transformation of both individuals and societies.

AGHS Legal Aid Cell

A human rights and legal aid organization operating in Pakistan since 1980. It was the first legal aid organization established in the country. The major focus of the organization has been the rights of women, children and minorities in Pakistan. It has been an objective of the organization to use legal aid and related initiatives for the promotion, protection and implementation of human rights.