Gender-Based Violence: Preventing, Healing and Accessing Justice

Saturday, November 20, 1:00-2:00 PM

The workshop will outline the extent of gender-based violence (GBV) on the international stage. Our panelists will present from three different fields within GBV: preventing, healing, and accessing justice. The goal of the workshop will not only be to state the widespread prevalence of GBV, but showcase the ways individuals in our community are working towards helping survivors heal, incorporating educational opportunities to prevent all forms of violence, and finally, pathways for justice. 

Panelists:

Hema Sarang-Sieminski is the Policy Director at Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence. Hema works closely with JDI members to assess, improve and transform how policies and systems respond to survivors and their communities across the state. Through numerous partnerships and collaborations, she maintains and fosters meaningful working relationships to support JDI’s policy and advocacy agenda. Hema supports JDI members in advocating for funding and legislative and system change impacting survivors. Hema has worked to provide training and technical assistance at the Victim Rights Law Center, private immigration practice, community engagement in LGBTQ communities with The Network/La Red, and as a Staff Attorney at the Immigration Unit of Greater Boston Legal Services.

Latanya Mapp Frett is President and CEO of Global Fund for Women and serves on the Board of Directors for Global Fund for Women and Global Fund for Women UK. As a feminist fund, Global Fund for Women offers flexible support to a diverse group of partners – more than 5,000 groups across 175 countries so far – to create meaningful change that will last beyond our lifetimes. Previously, she was the Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Global, the international arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, with regional and country offices in Africa and Latin America. She quadrupled the size of the program in four years to become one of the most innovative and sustainable global health organizations in the field. Ms. Frett worked for eight years as a human rights officer for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and for 10 years with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Divya Chaturvedi has been Saheli’s Co-Executive Director since 2018. . Saheli is a non-profit that offers cultural and language-specific services to South Asian and Arab domestic violence survivors and their children. She holds an MPA degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). She brings more than 15+ years of global non-profit management experience passionately working on a range of gender issues from microfinance, domestic violence, and gender research, to leadership development, at a number of the world’s leading international organizations and academic institutions like UNDP, UNIFEM, Ford Foundation, and Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). Divya has a long-term commitment to the cause of reducing domestic violence and the economic empowerment of women.