Participants at the Conference "Coping with Crises, Ending Armed Conflict" | Gunda-Werner-Institut

Anat Saragusti

Executive Director of Agenda, a non-profit organization in Israel
Anat Saragusti works as Executive Director of Agenda, a non-profit organization providing media services to social change organizations in Israel. She is a lecturer on media, and active in organizations for human rights. Anat Saragusti is a board member of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, a founding member of Women Lawyers for Social Justice, a founding member of the International Women Commission for Just and sustainable Peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
From 1978 to 1980 she studied still photography at the Hadassah College in Jerusalem. Upon graduation she joined the weekly news magazine Ha'olam Hazeh (“This World”) working as a photojournalist until it was closed in 1993. Throughout her work she was prominent in covering major, social and political events in Israel and the region. In 1986 she displayed her works at the Israeli Biennale for Photography at the Museum of Art, in Ein Harod.
With the closing of Ha'olam Hazeh, Saragusti joined the group that established the TV Channel 2 News Company (the first commercial TV channel in Israel) and was appointed its reporter in Gaza where she was posted for two years. In the mid-1990's she became the editor of news and current affairs for Channel 2 News and was the chief editor of its daily evening news edition and "Ulpan Shishi", the prestigious Friday night news magazine. Concurrently, she studied Law and attained a master's degree from Tel Aviv University.
In 2001 Saragusti was awarded the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship and lived in the U.S. for a year, where she covered the historic events of September 11th. Upon returning to Israel she focused on directing documentaries for Channel 2 News. In 2007 she moved to the town of Sderot where she shot a short diary-film, and in 2008 she finished directing Citizen Aloni, a documentary film that tells the life story and political activities of Shulamit Aloni, one of Israel's most prominent contemporary women. At the end of 2008 Saragusti left television and was appointed executive director of Agenda.

Dr Anuradha M. Chenoy

Professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Dr. Anuradha M. Chenoy is Professor at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India. She has been the Chairperson and Director for Russian and Central Asian Studies. She has also been an activist and engaged with many major social movements and closely linked to several civil society organizations. She comments regularly on radio and television and writes for Indian newspapers and popular magazines. Prof. Anuradha Chenoy has been on the governing bodies of several institutions in New Delhi like the Indian Social Institute, the Centre for Education and Communication, Women in International Security and Conflict Management and the Spring Dales Public School. She worked as an expert for United Nations at the Expert Group Meeting of the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women (1996); in 2000 she was Specialist and Consultant for the UNESCO Conference on “Women and a Culture of Peace” and Key Note Speaker at the 56th DPI NGO Conference of the United Nations, in 2003.

Barbara Lochbihler

From 1999 to 2009, Secretary General of the German section of Amnesty International
Barbara Lochbihler, born in 1959 in Ronsberg in the Bavarian region of Allgäu, South Germany. Learned tax inspector and social work studies (Diplom) in Munich. Direction of a service centre and home for the elderly. Foundation of a flat-sharing community for the elderly. Studies in political science, international law and economics (Magister). From 1987 to 1991, assistant (Parlamentsreferent) of the MP Eleonore Romberg (die Grünen) within the Bavarian Parliament. Between 1992 and 1999, Secretary General of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in Geneva. From 1999 to 2009, Secretary General of the German section of Amnesty International.
Barbara Lochbihler has encountered social inequality both during her studies and her time as social worker and quickly understood the need for concrete help in individual cases. At the same, however, she realized that politics have the responsibility to guarantee the basic conditions necessary to a humane and decent life. Moreover, the fact of looking into many feminist subjects in Germany sparked her interest in the living conditions of women in extreme poverty, violent conflicts and wars. Barbara Lochbihler’s political interest is based on a passionate commitment to peace, which should be understood as more than the mere absence of war and the rejection of exclusions of any kind.
These are the main reasons explaining her decision to work with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and with Amnesty International. It still fascinates her to understand both individual fates and the surrounding global framework, and to try and influence this very framework in order to allow for a humane and self-determined life in all its diversity.

Photo: Bettina Keller

Barbara Unmüßig

President of the Heinrich Böll Foundation
Barbara Unmüßig is President of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and studied political sciences at Freie Universität Berlin.

In 2000, she co-founded the German Institute for Human Rights (Deutsches Institut für Menschenrechte, DIMR), a human rights organisation, and has been on its board of trustees since 2001. In 2009, Unmüßig was made deputy chairperson of the DIMR board of trustees. She has also, since 2003, been a member of the advisory board of the environmental yearbook (Jahrbuch Ökologie). Since 2009, she has been a juror for the Helene-Weber-Preis, an award for young female municipal politicians initiated by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.

Barbara Unmüßig regularly contributes to the strategy and programme debate of the German Green party Bündnis 90/Die Grünen in fields such as gender policy and global governance.

From 1996 to 2001, she chaired the supervisory board of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and was elected president of the foundation in May 2002. She is responsible for its strategy and programme development for Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and for the Gunda Werner Institute for Feminism and Gender Democracy. Her work focuses on issues of globalisation and international climate policy, national and international gender policy, and the promotion of democracy and conflict prevention. In December 2006, she was elected to a second term as president.

Bente Aika Scheller

Has been country director of HBS Afghanistan since October 2008
Bente Aika Scheller has been country director of HBS Afghanistan since October 2008. Before joining HBS, she spent two years working for the German foreign office at the German embassy in Damascus, Syria taking care of political affairs. Later on, she worked as senior program officer for Syria at the Aspen Institute Berlin. Ms Scheller studied political science, Spanish and Latin American studies as well as Arabic. She specializes in foreign and security policy and holds a PhD in political sciences from Free University of Berlin.
Bente Scheller frequently comments on current affairs in the German media. In 2009, she did a conflict portrait of Afghanistan for the Federal Center for Political Education in Germany in 2009. She represented HBS Kabul in the World Economic Forum in Krynica in 2009 as moderator of the Afghanistan panel and she participated in the German Marshall Fund's prestigious Brussels Forum in March 2010."

Dr Carol Cohn

Director Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights, Boston, USA
Dr Carol Cohn is a Professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and the Director of the Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights, an organization devoted to building new knowledge about gender and security, and to bridging the gaps between research, policy and practice, in the quest to end armed conflicts and build sustainable peace. She has spent 20 years teaching international relations and women’s studies at the university level, and published widely in the field of gender and security, with a focus on gender mainstreaming in international security institutions, the discourse of nuclear defence intellectuals and national security specialists, gender integration issues in the US military, gender and peacekeeping, and the on-going efforts to ensure the implementation of UNSCR 1325 at the international and grassroots levels.
One of her current projects is the development of an on-line Interactive International Research Agenda on Gender, Armed Conflict, and Security, and of a “Gender, Peace and Security” Research Hub, a joint project between the Consortium on Gender, Security, and Human Rights and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). She is also partnering with the SSRC and the United Nations Development Programme in the development of a new global research centre, (provisionally named) the Institute on Gender, Peace and Security. Her current book project is a textbook entitled "Women and Wars", co-authored and edited with Laura Sjoberg, to be published by Polity Press in 2011.

Edgar Khachatryan

Co-Founder and director of Peace Dialogue NGO based in Vanadzor, Armenia
Edgar Khachatryan is from Vanadzor, Armenia. He graduated from Vanadzor State Pedagogical Institute in the faculty of biology. He has been involved in the activities of Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly (HCAV), Vanadzor Office as a volunteer since 2002. He began at HCAV as an assistant in the publication of the organisation's newspaper Civil Initiative and has coordinated the peacebuilding department of the organization until 2008. From 2006 to 2009 he has participated in the Omnibus 1325 Mobile Academy of Peace and Gender Democracy. And since 2009 he is a member of the Omnibus 1325 International Peacebuilding Network.
Currently Edgar is a co-founder and director of Peace Dialogue NGO based in Vanadzor, Armenia. He specializes in international peace-building trainings, consultancy and expertise in gender and peace processes, violence prevention, and post-war stabilization and recovery.

Frauke Lisa Seidensticker

German Institute for Human Rights, Berlin, Germany
Frauke Lisa Seidensticker, born in 1958, has been actively involved in strategic advocacy for human rights at the national and international level for more than 20 years. She is a senior expert in non-profit management with a strong track record in strategic leadership, change management and institution-building.
She successfully directed three non-profit-organisations in the field of human rights; from 1992 to 2001 the Swiss Section of Amnesty International and from 2001 to present the German Institute for Human Rights which she built up from the outset. As a member of the Executive Board, she holds the position of the deputy director. She served on several other Boards of Trustees. Seidensticker published on national human rights institutions and their co-operation with UN human rights bodies, human rights dialogues, and European Security and Defence Policy. She is a member of the International Coordinating Committee (ICC) of National Human Rights Institutions since 2002 and a member of European Coordinating Committee and the Bureau of the ICC since 2005. She participated in human rights dialogues with China, Iran, and other countries and in related projects of the European Union, the German and the Swiss government.
In her function as Secretary General of the Swiss Section of Amnesty International (AI) she founded and presided over the Swiss Forum Human Rights, an NGO – network for a regular dialogue with the Swiss foreign minister on issues of human rights. She took part in a series of missions and conferences in the Middle East. As a member of one of the Standing Committees of the International Executive Committee of AI, she continuously assumed advisory tasks for the international organisation of AI.
Since 1995 she offers management consultancies for non-profit-organisations with clients in Pakistan, Algiers, Belgium, Egypt, areas under Palestinian authority, Bolivia, Germany and Switzerland. Her profound knowledge on the international human rights protection system and her international network in the field of human rights forms the background for her consultancy work which will become the key focus of her activities from 2011 on.
Having studied the law, Seidensticker holds degrees from the University of Geneva (human rights), the University of Fribourg (post-graduate degree in non-profit management) and is a licensed Master Practitioner of NLPTM certified by the International Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

Gitti Hentschel

Director of the Gunda-Werner-Institute for Feminism and Gender Democracy of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
Gitti Hentschel, studies of communication theories and social welfare, director of the Gunda-Werner-Institute for Feminism and Gender Democracy of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, free lanced journalist and lecturer, member of the steering committee of the German Women’s Security Council; board member of a women’s refugee, former co-founder of the "taz", an independant daily newspaper and one of the publisher of the left weekly newspaper „Freitag“, and former women’s representative at a college of higher education. Expert in e.g: gendersensitive peace and security policy, trainings for women, strategies against (sexual) violence, women in mass media, intercultural and virtual communication from a gender perspective.

Helmut Ganser

Brigadier General (ret.)
Helmut Ganser, Brigadier General (ret.) works as an expert and consultant on the topics of multilateral security policy as well as bilateral and multilateral negotiations. He holds a diploma in Psychology and one in Political Sciences from the University of Hamburg. Before getting retired in 2008 he worked for 13 years at the intersection between politics and military at the German Ministry of Defence as well as for NATO and OSZE. He was a lecturer at German Military Academy (“Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr”) in Hamburg. He is author of several articles for journals and contributed chapters to a number of anthologies.

Henri Myrttinen

Researcher, German NGO Watch Indonesia!
Henri Myrttinen is currently a researcher with the German NGO Watch Indonesia!, focusing on West Papua and Timor-Leste. He has been previously working for a number of international NGOs and research institutions, focusing especially on post-conflict and post-disaster societies in Southeast Asia and Central and Eastern Europe, in addition to which he has worked as a free-lance journalist. His academic research has mainly been on issues of gender (especially masculinities) and conflict, having recently completed his Ph.D. thesis on masculinities and violence in Timor-Leste for the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and co-edited a book on gender and small arms (“Sexed Pistols – The Gendered Impacts of Small Arms and Light Weapons,” UNU Press) with Vanessa Farr and Albrecht Schnabel.

Katelijn De Nijs

Editor and Coordinator of the Belgian National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security
Katelijn De Nijs is editor and coordinator of the Belgian National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, coordinator of the commemorative events on the 10th anniversary of UN Resolution 1325 organized by the Belgian presidency to the EU and gender focal point of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Previously, Katelijn De Nijs worked for Médecins Sans Frontières, focusing on access to health care services and rehabilitation of SGBV survivors, respectively in Aceh (Indonesia), Malaysia, Myanmar, Nigeria as well as in Belgium for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers.
Katelijn De Nijs holds masters in Philosophy, International Relations and Human Rights Law.

Dr Marina Grasse

One of the co-founders of OWEN, a Berlin based womens' association
Dr Marina Grasse is one of the co-founders of OWEN, a Berlin based womens' association. Since 1991, she is working for OWEN in different positions.
She was born in Berlin in 1950 where she has been living ever since. Before establishing OWEN she has been working as a biologist for the Academy of Sciences in the German Democratic Republic, the Berlin University Hospital Charite and the Humboldt University Department of Philosophy.
In the beginning of the 1980s, Marina Grasse was active in different independent peace movements in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). At the GDR institution Round Table she represented the citizens' committee People's Initative for Education, an organisation that she is also a co-founder of. In the first, and the last, freely elected GDR government of 1990 she was responsible for equality issues until the GDR joined the Federal Democratic Republic on October 3rd, 1990, rendering her unemployed for a short while. Together with other politically active women she developed a project called Womens' Network of Eastern and Western Europe, an organisation that later gave rise to OWEN. After 2006, OWEN shifted the focus of its political activities, concentrating more on gender and peace education. Subsequently, OWEN was renamed Mobile Academy for Gender Democracy and the Promotion of Peace.
Marina Grasse was awarded the German Federal Cross of Merits for her political action in the German Democratic Republic.
For many years, her special interest has been to promote a special form of peace education in Germany and beyond. She aims at engendering both men and women to understand themselves as actors of peace and to stand up decisively for nonviolent forms of conflict settlement and peace promotion. Marina Grasse is both project coordinator and responsible for the educational development of the project Mobile Peace Academy OMNIBUS 1325. As a member of OMNIBUS1325 she is currently managing an exchange program for peace and human rights activists from the Caucasus and Bosnia Herzegovina. In her home town Berlin, she is responsible today for a district based women's project in Berlin Neukölln.
Marina Grasse is mother to four grown up children and the grand-mother of two girls.

Monika Hauser - Picture: Stephan Röhl - Some rights reserved

Monika Hauser

Founder of medica mondiale

Monika Hauser is a gynaecologist specialist who has worked as a resident doctor in various German cities. Between 1992 and 1994, she worked together with women experts from Bosnia to develop Medica Zenica, a therapy centre for women which she later headed. It was in connection with this work that the medica mondiale organisation ultimately evolved. Over the subsequent six years, Monika Hauser supported the further development as a member of its board while also returning to Zenica on repeated occasions for extended missions. In 1999, she launched the medica mondiale Kosova project which entailed numerous visits to projects in Albania and the Kosovo. In 2000, Monika Hauser assumed the professional and political management of medica mondiale. As medica mondiale continues to grow into an organisation advocating human rights, she regularly speaks at national and international congresses and presents the work conducted by medica mondiale to experts and the general public.

Monika Hauser is responsible for developing the curriculum for training "psychological consultants for women" in Kosovo. Since 2002, she has also been involved in training Afghan women doctors, nurses and midwives in Kabul in her capacity as lecturer. She has received several prestigious awards such as the Gustav Heinemann Prize, the Annette Barthelt Prize and the Peter Beier Prize of the German Lutheran Church in the Rhineland as well as the Rotary Prize Trentino, South Tyrol. In 1993, she was named Woman of the Year by German ARD TV's Tagesthemen programme. She turned down the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in protest at the German Federal Ministry of the Interior's resolution to expel Bosnian refugees in 1996. In 2008, she was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize. Monika Hauser is one of 1,000 women to be chosen for the 1,000 Women for Peace initiative. This initiative was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

Nadje Al-Ali

Professor of Gender Studies and Chair of the Centre for Gender Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Nadje Al-Ali is Professor of Gender Studies and Chair of the Centre for Gender Studies, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her main research interests revolve around gender theory; feminist activism; women and gender in the Middle East; transnational migration and diaspora moblization; war, conflict and reconstruction. Her publications include “What kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq” (2009, University of California Press, co-authored with Nicola Pratt); “Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present” (2007, Zed Books); “New Approaches to Migration” (ed., Routledge, 2002, with Khalid Koser); “Secularism, Gender and the State in the Middle East” (Cambridge University Press 2000) and “Gender Writing – Writing Gender” (The American University in Cairo Press, 1994) as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles. Her most recent book (co-edited with Nicola Pratt) is entitled “Women and War in the Middle East: Transnational Perspectives” (Zed Books, 2009).
Nadje Al-Ali is currently involved in a research and capacity building project involving female Iraqi academics inside Iraq (University of Baghdad) and in Jordan. The project seeks to document the main problems and challenges for female Iraqi academics in higher education and to identify training and skills needs. She is involved in setting up a women and gender studies course at the University of Salahadeen in Erbil. She is presently also working on a paper about the Iraqi Kurdish women’s movement in relation to the wider Iraqi women’s movement.
Nadje Al-Ali has been elected as President of the Association of Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS) (2009-2011). She is also a member of the Feminist Review Collective and a founding member of Act Together: Women’s Action for Iraq and a member of Women in Black UK. At SOAS, she is running a fellowship programme for female academic refugees.

Natasha Lambić

Activist in Women in Black from Serbia
Natasha Lambić (1975) is an activist in Women in Black from Serbia. After studying history and a shortly working as a journalist, she became involved in the issues of gender justice - the position of women in conflict situations and post conflict reconstructions.
She was working on the documentation of war crimes in “Humanitarian Law Centar”. She conducted 35 in-depth oral history interviews with women victims of war crimes from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was a coordinator of a team who organized four public truth telling debates, where the victims of war crimes publicly spoke about their experiences. Also, Natasa was a member of a Team for victim/witness support and legal representation, formed to support victims and family members who took part in war crime trials in Serbia.
In “Women in Black” she works as a researcher engaged in security issues - the team is monitoring the implementation of Resolution R1325 through shadow report, and offers numerous educational activities to promote human security and gender perspective in ongoing processes. In March 2009, she was a co-author of a documentary about violations of labour rights of women in Serbia. Currently, she is working on a film that discusses the situation of the Roma population. She is a co-editor of monthly Women in Black's Solidarity bulletin.

"Women in Black" was found in October 1991 in Belgrade, where activists began permanent, public, nonviolent protest against the war, the nationalist and militant regime in Serbia, ethnic cleansing, and all forms of discrimination. Women in Black - Belgrade has become well known for denouncing war crimes committed by the Milosević regime and for cooperating with peace and civic movements and groups in the other war-affected countries of the former Yugoslavia.
We have been extremely successful in organizing activities and reaching out to women from all sides of conflicts, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or political or educational background. The unique feminist approach to transitional justice, developed by Women in Black Network – Serbia, emphasizes using feminist ethics of care and the importance of women in advocating for just and lasting peace. Women in Black—Belgrade’s main areas of engagement are issues of transitional justice, religious fundamentalism and human security, all of which we approach from a feminist antimilitarist perspective. Our activities include educational programs, research and publishing, lobbying, street actions and actions in solidarity with the victims of crimes.
Additionally, "Women in Black" has also played an instrumental role in the formation of various networks and coalitions including: The International Network of Women in Black, The Women in Black Network—Serbia, The Network for Conscientious Objection in Serbia, G8 (a group of Belgrade NGOs that work on issues of transitional justice), The Coalition for a Secular State, The Women’s Peace Coalition (comprised of The Women in Black Network—Serbia and The Kosova Women’s Network), The Women’s Lobby for Peace, Security, and Justice in Southeast Europe, The Feminist Coalition, and HAOS (Urgent Antifascist Resistance—Serbia).

Dr Paul Higate

Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Politics, University of Bristol, UK
Dr. Paul Higate is Reader in Gender and Security at the University of Bristol (United Kingdom). He holds a PhD in Sociology (title of dissertation: “Soldiering On? A Sociological Analysis of Homelessness Amongst Ex-Servicemen.”) and a MA (Hons) in Sociology. He was Lecturer at the School for Political Studies at the University of Bristol (1999-2005) and a Research Associate at the Centre for Housing Policy at the University of York (UK) from 1998 until 1999. Before starting his academical career he was a Non-Commissioned Officer, Personnel Administrator, in the Royal Air Force (1983-1991).
Paul Higate’s research focuses on the socially productive influence of military masculinities, the analysis of gendered relations, in particular prostitution in peacekeeping missions, and most recently the ways in which peacekeepers create and re-create security in their work. He is author and editor on various books on these topics.

Rebecca D. Stubblefield

Program Manager in the fields advocacy, women peace and security at medica mondiale in Liberia
Rebecca Stubblefield is Program Manager in the fields advocacy, women peace and security at medica mondiale in Liberia. From 2007 to 2009 she worked as a Peace Project Manager for the Danish Refugee Council; previously Rebecca Stubblefield was the International Executive Director of “Smile Africa” (2004-2006). Before getting involved in advocating women’s rights she worked as a teacher at different schools in Liberia. She graduated as a teacher and holds a B.B.A. in Accounting from the University of Liberia. Furthermore she successfully completed several advanced trainings on topics of conflict resolution, reconciliation and trauma work. 2009 she became a United Nations Civilian Staff Officer.

Sandesh Sivakumaran

Lecturer in Law, University of Nottingham
Sandesh Sivakumaran is Lecturer at the School of Law and member of the Human Rights Law Centre, University of Nottingham. He has acted as an expert for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, served as international law advisor to the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and advised on international law aspects of peace processes. Sandesh is a member of the International Law Association Committee on International Human Rights Law and a member of the Bar of the State of New York. He previously worked at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In 2009, Sandesh was awarded the Journal of International Criminal Justice - Regione Toscana Giorgio La Pira Prize for his work on non-state armed groups.

Soraya Rahim Sobhrang

Commissioner in charge of women rights protection and development
Soraya Rahim Sobhrang was born in Hirat. After her secondary education, she completed her higher education in the faculty of medicines, Kabul University. She worked with the Aliabad and Malalai Zezhanton hospital and then migrated to Germany.
Dr. Sobhrang completed training courses in the fields of management, women rights development, gender and psychology in Hamburg, Germany and in 1981 of solar calendar she returned to her homeland and started with the Ministry of women affairs as technical and political deputy minister.
In 1984, she worked as an advisor for the women’s rights protection and development unit of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, where later on, in Dalw, 1985 she was selected as a Commissioner. Besides having membership in national and international societies, Dr. Sobhrang has participated in international conferences in more than eleven European and Asian countries.
Dr. Sobhrang, who, as a Commissioner is now in charge of women rights protection and development, is making effort to give emphasis to the following issues: the nature and form of women human rights violation should be monitored, serious attention should be paid to the elimination of all forms of violence against women, women should achieve the right to get access to justice and judicial organs, institutions and networks should be established to advocate women’s rights.

Coping with Crises, Ending Armed Conflict – Peace Promoting Strategies of Women and Men

In cooperation with:

PeaceWomen Across the Globe & German Women's Security Council

Summary and documentation of the conference:

Further Information:

Events in New York

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