International Initiatives

International Study Abroad Program

Local Feminisms, Global Perspectives

The Women's Center, in conjunction with the Education, Leadership, and Policy Department (EDLF) of the Curry School of Education and Studies in Women and Gender (SWAG), offered a course in Seoul, Korea June 17 - July 2, 2005, to coincide with a major international women's studies conference, the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women. The UVa course, called "Local Feminisms, Global Perspectives: Local Women's Activism in an International Context" offered a comparative analysis of women's activism around the world. The conference, held every three years on a different continent, brought together more than 2,000 participants from 75 countries. The Center also hosted international scholars, including Wambui Jackie Chege, from Kenya, and Xinrong Zheng, Director of Multicultural Education at Beijing University, China.

Local Feminisms, Global Perspectives

Twelve women from UVa and Charlottesville attended the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress (also called the Women's Worlds 2005 Conference), in Seoul, Korea, led by Center Director, Sharon Davie, and Dawn Anderson, the CenterÕs Director of Mentoring and Diversity Programs.

Read about the trip to Seoul in InsideUVa
A Global Perspective: Students, faculty attend Ninth International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women
by Sheri Trice

Visit the Women's Worlds 2005 conference homepage at www.ww05.org.

2006: Justice Mirna Perla

The Women's Center and Law School Human Rights Program welcome Salvadoran Supreme Court Justice Mirna Perla, an extraordinary woman whose work on human rights is remarkable. Justice Perla's concerns include women's rights and domestic and sexual violence as well as the significant problems remaining from the war years, such as disappearances and missing children. Justice Perla will speak about her work on the issue of gender violence in armed conflict, including domestic violence and sexual violence in the aftermath of war on extreme political repression.

Justice Perla was deeply involved in working against the reactionary regime during the war. Her life was constantly threatened, as was that of her husband's, Herbert Anaya, who was a leading human rights activist and the Commissioner for Human Rights in the 1980's. Anaya was assassinated within one year of his appointment. Justice Perla fled with her children and lived in Canada while her children were fostered by friends in California. Eventually she ended up in Costa Rica, where she participated in the creation of a Central American Commission on Human Rights and was involved in the El Salvador peace accords of 1992. Justice Perla has since returned to El Salvador, where she has continued her advocacy for human rights.

Cosponsored with the Law School Human Rights Program