Guest Speakers

Haydee Padilla
With 37 years of experience in the management of strategic alliances, currently Coordinator of Technical Unit of Family, Gender and Life Course, of the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization (PAHO/ WHO), the office in Brazil. It of Salvadoran nationality, With PhD studies in Public Sciences and Public Policy Development, a Master in Public Health and high school an obstetrical nursing university degree and many diplomas, among them: Promotion of Health, Gender and Public Statistics, Field Epidemiology, High Management and Administration of Health Services among others. Participation in the Reform and Sustainable Financing of the Health Sector for Latin America and the Caribbean; Introduction to the Development of Evidence-Based Clinical Guidelines and Evidence-Based Perinatal Medicine (CLAP / SM / PAHO / WHO);Member of the Health Sector Reform team in El Salvador; National Director of Women's Affairs at the Ministry of Health; Part of a team of Latin American specialists at John Hopkins University to review the Manual of Complications of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Postpartum, Miami, Florida, among other. Part of the team for the implementation of the Health Sector Reform as Chief of Regulation in the El Salvador. Professor of PhDs and Masters in Public Policies, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Gender, in public and private Universities of the region.

Jacqueline Pitanguy, a sociologist and political scientist, is the Founder and Director of Cidadania, Estudo, Pesquisa, Informação e Ação (CEPIA), a non-governmental organization based in Rio de Janeiro. At CEPIA Ms. Pitanguy coordinates research on gender issues and facilitates advocacy and educational programs relating to violence against women and reproductive health. She has been a Professor at the Pontificia Universidade Católica de Rio de Janeiro and at Rutgers University, where she held the Laurie New Jersey Chair in Women’s Studies from 1991-92. She held a cabinet position as President of the National Council for Women’s Rights (1986-89), designing and implementing public policies to improve women’s condition in Brazil.

Ms. Pitanguy serves on a number of international boards, including the Inter-American Dialogue, the Institute for Education of UNESCO, the Society for International Development, the Global Fund for Women, and the International Human Rights Council, headed by former President Jimmy Carter at the Carter Center. She has published extensively and serves on the editorial boards of Harvard University's Health and Human Rights Review, Sao Paulo's Council of Medicine Review, and UNICEF's International Review of Education. Her work "Women's Citizenship and Human Rights: The Case of Brazil" was included in A Diplomacy of the Oppressed (1995).

Ms. Pitanguy speaks widely in national and international fora on reproductive health and gender issues. She is a recipient of the Medal of Rio Branco, the highest decoration of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Emma Fulu, PhD, Founder and Director, The Equality Institute, Australia

Dr Emma Fulu is the Founder and Director of The Equality Institute, which works to advance all forms of equality and prevent violence against women through scientific research, innovation and creative communications. She has a PhD from the University of Melbourne and 15 years of experience leading large-scale research and primary prevention projects on violence against women across Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Previously, Emma was based in South Africa as Technical Lead of the DFID-funded £25 million global program What Works to Prevent Violence against Women and Girls. Before that she led the ground-breaking United Nations Multi-Country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific. Emma presents and publishes widely on the issue of violence against women. She is the author of the book Domestic Violence in Asia: Globalization, gender and Islam in the Maldives and blogs for the Huffington Post UK. The mother of three young children, Emma lives in Melbourne, Australia and also writes about motherhood and feminism in her personal blog, I Am Not Superwoman.

Dr. Colleen Varcoe is a professor in the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on violence and inequity, with an emphasis on both structural and interpersonal violence. Her completed research includes studies of the risks and health effects of violence, including for rural and Indigenous women. Her current research includes studies to promote equity (including cultural safety, harm reduction, and trauma- and violence-informed care) in primary health care and Emergency and studies of health interventions for women who have experienced violence, most recently for Indigenous women.

Brisa De Angulo, J.D., M.A.

Brisa De Angulo is CEO and founder of A Breeze of Hope Foundation/Centro Una Brisa de Esperanza, which is Bolivia’s first center providing free transdisciplinary legal, social, and psychological services to child survivors of sexual violence. Brisa is a pioneer in her field, having successfully implemented for 13 years a child-directed service model that focuses on access to justice, personal healing, relational healing, political participation, economic independence, and education. Brisa has used her 17 years of experience working with early childhood education and 13 years of experience working with sexual violence prevention to refine her model and share best practices with advocates throughout her region. Since opening in 2004, Brisa’s center has maintained a 95% conviction rate in the hundreds of criminal trails it has managed, has educated over 85,000 people (including government officials) in sexual violence prevention, and has provided free direct services to over 1,600 child survivors and their supportive family members.

Brisa is also a powerful advocate before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Brisa’s sustained efforts are helping to reshape Bolivia’s justice system and improve its treatment of child survivors. Brisa is also co-author of 10 books on sexual violence and childhood development and has conducted landmark research on sexual violence in Bolivia.

Marcos Nascimento
Marcos Nascimento is a Psychologist, and holds a PhD on Collective Health in Brazil. Marcos, is a senior researcher at Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), a public health institute attached to the Brazilian Ministry of Health. At Fiocruz, he is Coordinator of the Women's Health Program and Professor at National Institute of Women's, Child and Adolescent Health. His areas of expertise include: Gender, Sexuality, Masculinities, Youth and Gender Based Violence.

Dr Garcia-Moreno is a physician from Mexico with a masters in community medicine from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has over 25 years of experience in health care delivery, research and policy, working in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Increasingly her work has  focused on sexual and reproductive health, women's health and gender in health.  For the last 15 years she has been leading the World Health Organization's (WHO) work on gender and women's health,  violence against women and HIV/AIDS in women and girls and currently leads the team on Gender, Reproductive Rights, Sexual Health and Adolescence in the Department of Reproductive Health and Research, WHO. She is coordinator of the WHO Multi-Country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence Against Women, a large research initiative involving  now over 15  countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa. She is a founder and coordinating group member of the SVRI and on the Steering Committee of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS.