Dr. Heisoo Shin
 |
Dr. Heisoo Shin from the Republic of Korea has been working for more than thirty years to protect and promote women’s human rights, especially in the area of violence against women. Dr. Shin served as an expert of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) for 2001-2008, part of it as Vice-Chair, and also as a member of the Advisory Committee to the UN Secretary General’s In-depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women. She was commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission in Korea for 2005-2008. As President of Women’s Hot Line, she has successfully led the movement for legislation on violence against women, which resulted in new laws on sexual violence (1993), domestic violence (1997) and trafficking and prostitution (2004). She is currently representative of the National Movement for Eradication of Sex Trafficking which she established in June 2009. Academically, she was an associate professor at Hanil University and Presbyterian Theological Seminary for 1993-2000, a visiting professor at the Graduate School of NGO Studies at KyungHee University for 2001-2006. Currently, she is an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at Ewha Womans University.
Ms. Indira Jaising
 |
Ms. Indira Jaising has been a member of the CEDAW Committee since January 2009. She is a practicing lawyer and Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India, and became the first woman to be appointed to the post of Additional Solicitor General of India in 2009. Throughout her legal career, Ms. Jaising has focused on the protection of human rights of women. She successfully defended several landmark cases on discrimination against women in India. She was awarded the Padma Shree, the third highest civilian honor in India, by the Present of India in 2005 for her relentless service to the cause of public affairs. She played an instrumental role in the drafting of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005), and in the campaign for its enactment. She is also founder secretary of the Lawyers Collective, a group of lawyers, law students and social activists in India committed to the use of law as an instrument of social change to further the constitutional and human rights of marginalized groups. Ms. Jaising is currently Project Director of the Women’s Rights Initiative of the Lawyers Collective.
Mr. Patrick Brown
Born in Sheffield, England, Patrick Brown left British shores at the age of five, when his father's work took the family to the Middle East and then onwards to Africa. After years of traveling, the family finally settled in Perth, Australia. Heavily influenced by 1980/90's images of war and urban strife, Brown flew back to Africa (Malawi), where he documented the humanitarian work of a surgeon who had once saved his life. His photos soon became a major exhibition, raising thousands of dollars for charity and winning the Australian Kodak Photographer of the Year award.
Inspired, Brown left for Asia in 1999, and was soon covering Vietnamese coal-mining strikes, the pan-Asian trafficking of endangered species, Burmese rebel group the Shan State Army, the skyrocketing methamphetamine trade and also traveling from the jungles of Assam to the brothels of Ho Chi Minh City. He has since made Thailand his base, devoting himself to documenting critical social issues across the Asia region. Brown's work regularly appears in Time, Newsweek, Stern, GEO, Der Spiegel magazine, Vanity Fair, Neon, The Guardian, Liberation, Human Rights Watch and UNICEF International, among others. His work has won the Picture of the Year International, Multimedia project (USA), and also has a 3p Foundation Award (French), World Press Photo Award, his work has been shown at some of the prestigious festivals and galleries in the world, The ICP in New York, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Visa pour l'Image, in Perpiginan, Noorderlicht International Photofestival, Reportage festival in Australia, Fotofreo Australia and a World Press Photo Awards. His work is in numerous international collections, including the City of Perth Photographic Collection, Holmes à Court Collection, World Press Photo Foundation, Amsterdam, Ldymar Gallery, Stockholm and The Photography Gallery of Western Australia Collection. He has been a member of Panos Pictures since 2004.
Paula Bronstein
Paula Bronstein earned a bachelor of Fine Arts, major in photojournalism at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. She started her career as a newspaper photographer starting from 1982 to 1998, staff with the New Haven Register and then moved to The Hartford Courant newspaper for 12 years from 1984-1996. Then moved onto the Chicago Tribune and finally the Register Guard in Eugene, Oregon. During that time Paula covered various international news stories and was affiliated with several photo agencies. Most significant were Gamma Liaison and Tony Stone Images, both were aquired by Getty Images.
In 1998, Paula chose to go freelance, leaving the newspaper world behind along with the U.S.A basing herself in Bangkok, Thailand covering news and feature stories throughout the Asian region.
top
