How far have Chinese women come in realizing these goals and the rights their government committed to through CEDAW? What are the current challenges related to employment disparities, domestic and family violence, and other issues? What legislation has been passed or been proposed to further protect women’s rights, such as the draft domestic violence law being tabled at the current NPC? Join Joan Kaufman for a look at the landscape of women’s rights in China in 2015.

Tuesday, April 28, 7:30pm
“Women’s Rights in China – Progress since the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference and Current Challenges”
Joan Kaufman, Professor, Columbia University
Beijing International Society & Columbia Global Centers
Embassy of Norway | 60 RMB; 30 RMB for students | Foreign Passport Holders Only

In 1995 Beijing hosted the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women, with delegates creating a “Beijing Platform for Action” to further gender equality and women’s rights and empowerment globally. The Chinese government, an early signatory to the global CEDAW convention (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women), committed itself to the twelve main goals agreed to at the conference. How far have Chinese women come in realizing these goals and the rights their government committed to through CEDAW? What are the current challenges related to employment disparities, domestic and family violence, and other issues? What legislation has been passed or been proposed to further protect women’s rights, such as the draft domestic violence law being tabled at the current NPC? Join Joan Kaufman for a look at the landscape of women’s rights in China in 2015.

Joan Kaufman, M.A., M.S., Sc.D., is the Director of the Columbia Global Centers | East Asia based in Beijing, one of eight global centers established by Columbia University, and Associate Professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. She was previously Lecturer in Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Principal and Faculty Affiliate of the Hauser Center for Non Profit Organizations at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and Distinguished Scientist and Senior Lecturer at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University where she taught global health policy.

Dr. Kaufman also worked as the China Team Leader for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative from 2002-2012. She was the first UNFPA international program officer in China in the 1980’s and from 1996-2001 she was the Ford Foundation’s Reproductive Health Program Officer for China based in Beijing.

Dr. Kaufman holds a Doctorate in Public Health (Harvard School of Public Health), a Master’s in Asian Studies and Health and Medical Sciences (UC Berkeley), and B.A. cum laude in Chinese Studies (Trinity College). She has published widely on AIDS, reproductive health, gender, population and international health policy, emerging infectious diseases, and civil society and health with a focus on China.

A similar event is also available from Columbia Global Centers at 2:30pm on April 28. Details are available here.

Event information courtesy of Legation Quarter