Women’s Human Rights Program Director Cheryl Thomas was selected to be one of 15 experts from around the world to participate in a United Nations Expert Group Meeting on good practices in legislation on violence against women in Vienna on May 26-28, 2008. The meeting is being hosted by the U.N. Division for the Advancement of Women of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDAW/DESA) in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The expert group will analyze different legislative approaches; assess lessons learned in regard to laws and legislative reforms on violence against women; and identify effective approaches and recommend future strategies for legislation on violence against women.

The meeting is in response to the December 2006 study on all forms of violence against women by the Secretary-General of the U.N., as well as a U.N. General Assembly resolution of 19 December 2006, calling upon Member States and the United Nations system to intensify their efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women.

As part of her participation in the meeting, Cheryl Thomas will prepare and discuss a paper on effective legislation on violence against women in the region of Eastern Europe, where we have worked for fifteen years.

The expert group will be developing guidelines and a model framework for legislation on violence against women, to be used by States as they continue to work on legal reform on this critical issue.