DECEMBER 27 - RADHIKA COOMARASWAMYRadhika Coomaraswamy was the Under-Secretary-General of the United

DECEMBER 27 - RADHIKA COOMARASWAMY

Radhika Coomaraswamy was the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict until 13 July 2012. A lawyer by training and formerly the Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission, Coomaraswamy is an internationally known human rights advocate who has worked as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.

In her reports to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, she has written on violence in the family, violence in the community, violence against women during armed conflict and the problem of international trafficking. A strong advocate on women’s rights, she has intervened on behalf of women throughout the world seeking clarification from governments in cases involving violence against women.

She also compiled a report on “comfort women”, citing Seiji Yoshida’s remark, and has conducted field visits to Japan and Korea on the problem of “comfort women”, Rwanda, Colombia, Haiti and Indonesia with regard to violence against women in war time, Poland, India, Bangladesh and Nepal on the issue of trafficking, the United States on women in prisons, Brazil on domestic violence, and Cuba on violence against women generally.

The President of Sri Lanka conferred on her the title of Deshamanya, a prestigious national honour. She has also received the International Law Award of the American Bar Association, the Human Rights Award of the International Human Rights Law Group, the Bruno Kreisky Award of 2000, the Leo Ettinger Human Rights Prize of the University of Oslo, Archbishop Oscar Romero Award of the University of Dayton, the William J. Butler Award from the University of Cincinnati, and the Robert S. Litvack Award from McGill University.

Text for today’s post was taken from Wikipedia.