Please join us for a post-CSW65 Parallel Panel with special guests
Lorraine Smith van Lin, Esq.
Victim’s Rights Advocate
Founding Director of Tallawah Justice for Women
Sylvia Acan
War Survivor
Founder and Executive Director, Golden Women Vision, Uganda
Moderated by
Fay Parris, Esq.
Co-Chair, Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York
International Women’s Rights Committee
Global Justice Advocates Initiative
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Thursday | 6 May 2021 | 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. EST
The United Nations Association of New York, together with the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York, will co-host a special panel following on from this year’s 65th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW65).
This event, Powerful Game Changers Empowering Women and Girls, brings together an outstanding panel of experts who, in various ways, have dedicated their lives to advocating for those who face immense challenges.
The panel will present multidisciplinary interventions that have empowered women and girls globally in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Our dynamic speakers will share their wisdom, perspectives, stories of courage and of tenacity in this regard. This panel will discuss critical narratives that appropriately address the multi-layered impacts of traumatic experiences, as well as paradigms that safeguard women’s equality and personal integrity.
Moderator
FAY PARRIS
Fay Parris is an international law consultant and immigration law practitioner with extensive experience in international, humanitarian and human rights law. In her private practice she has represented diverse clientelle, including physicians seeking national interest waivers; and individuals in removal proceedings, including those seeking asylum or withholding of removal under the UN Convention Against Torture. She served as a Visiting Professional with the International Criminal Court (ICC), Office of the Prosecutor, where gleaning from decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and from International Humanitarian Law, she advised the Court on modalities for prosecuting gender-based persecution; as an advisor to the ICC Trust Fund for Victims and more recently; as Supervising Attorney with the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights where she advocated on behalf of unaccompanied immigrant children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.
She is an officer of the Queens County Women's Bar Association; an Ex-Officio Director of the Executive Committee of NGOs in Association with the United Nations Department of Public Information; Nominations Chair of the UN NGO Committee on Mental Health; and Co-Chairs the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York (WBASNY) International Women's Rights Committee. Fay was named as the 2019 recipient of the WBASNY Marilyn R. Menge Award for outstanding work on behalf of the association.
Panel Speakers
LORRAINE SMITH VAN LIN, Esq.
Lorraine Smith van Lin is an international expert in victims' rights, reparations and women's rights. She is the Founding Director of Tallawah Justice for Women, a global non-profit human rights organisation dedicated to connecting and equipping women leaders of survivor and grassroots organisations from the Global South, and amplifying their voices to advocate for justice and development of women survivors.
She has served in several capacities in criminal justice including as a former prosecutor and parish court judge in her native country, Jamaica, as Director of the International Bar Association’s International Criminal Court Programme and as Senior legal adviser with Redress, an international human rights organisation working to achieve justice for torture victims worldwide.
Lorraine has authored numerous reports and academic articles on the International Criminal Court, victims’ participation and reparations, and is a sought-after speaker and expert on victims’ rights.
In 2019, her profile was featured by ATLAS, an influential global network of over 8000 female-identifying lawyers, activists, and jurists with expertise in various facets of public international law. In 2020, she participated in an expert panel organised by the American Society for International Law and was among the international experts featured in a series by the Wayamo Foundation on International Justice Day 2020.
SYLVIA ACAN
Sylvia Acan is a survivor of the 20-year war which took place in Northern Uganda between the Joseph Kony-led Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan Government forces (the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces). Abducted at the age of 13 years, Sylvia lived for all of her teenage years in captivity, suffering unimaginable physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her captors. She gave birth to two children while abducted. After 8 years in captivity, she managed to escape and started the difficult process of rebuilding her life.
Based on her own experience in captivity and knowing first-hand the plight of other women and children who managed to survive the brutality of life in the LRA camps, Sylvia dedicated her life to working tirelessly to support victims, particularly women and children born of war. Her passion to help fellow survivors lead to the founding of Golden Women Vision in Gulu, which now assists more than 500 women survivors and 120 children.
After returning from captivity, Sylvia continued her studies and has attained both a Bachelor and Masters Degree in social work and social administration. She has also received specialised training in general food distribution, psychosocial support, trauma management, peer counselling, access to justice and dealing with conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence, and has worked as programme assistant in the area of food management in humanitarian contexts.