Marie-Claire Faray is a women's activist from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Faray obtained a Bachelor of Science at the London Metropolitan University and graduated from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with a Master of Science. Upon graduation, she went to Queen Mary University of London to work while completing her PhD. [1]
Faray works as a Postgraduate Medical Information Adviser and Research Scientist in infectious diseases at the Queen Mary University of London and Barts Hospital. [2] Faray lobbies for the creation of international guidelines that respect the law and government [3] by campaigning against violence towards women in Africa, and for general peace and human rights causes. [4]
Faray is involved in promoting the Maputo Protocol for African women's rights. One of her main objectives is to ensure basic human rights for all women and their safety in coordination with Articles 3, 17, 18, 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights across Africa by 2020 as part of the African Women's Decade movement. [3] She is the Vice President of the UK chapter of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, [4] and is on the executive committee for Common Cause UK, a platform which promotes Congolese women in the UK. [2] She is also a member of the Million Women Rise coalition. [3] She is also a member of UK chapter of Million Women Rise, a national coalition of women. [5] on December 16, 2007, in Faray managed with the help two others establish a branch of WILPF in Congolese capital city of Kinshasa. [6]
Faray attended the United Nation's 2008 Biennial Meeting of States to discuss the relationship between small arms and violence against women in Africa. [7]
Faray lives in London with her two daughters. [3]
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make known the causes of war and work for a permanent peace" and to unite women worldwide who oppose oppression and exploitation. WILPF has national sections in 37 countries.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (S/RES/1325), on women, peace, and security, was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on 31 October 2000, after recalling resolutions 1261 (1999), 1265 (1999), 1296 (2000), and 1314 (2000). The resolution acknowledged the disproportionate and unique impact of armed conflict on women and girls. It calls for the adoption of a gender perspective to consider the special needs of women and girls during conflict, repatriation and resettlement, rehabilitation, reintegration, and post-conflict reconstruction.
Monica Mary McWilliams is a Northern Irish academic, peace activist, human rights defender and former politician.
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Lisa J. Shannon is an American author, human rights activist, and speaker known for her work in the international women's movement, including founding Run for Congo Women, co-founding Sister Somalia with Fartuun Adan Abdisalan, co-founding and serving as CEO of Every Woman Treaty. She is author of A Thousand Sisters: My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman. Her second book, Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen: An Ordinary Family's Extraordinary Tale of Love, Loss, and Survival in Congo, follows one family's struggle for survival in the shadow of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army.
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Caddy Adzuba is a Congolese lawyer, journalist, and activist for women's rights. Her focus is on fighting sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). She worked for Radio Okapi and in 2014 she received the Princess Asturias Award for Peace.
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Sadie Sawyer Hughley (1912–2004) was an African-American civil rights activist.
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Kathleen Innes was a British Quaker, educator, writer and pacifist, who served as the joint chair of the international headquarters for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) from 1937 to 1946.
Solange Lwashiga Furaha is a human and women's rights activist from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the executive secretary of the South Kivu Congolese Women's Caucus for Peace.
Katana Gégé Bukuru is a Congolese activist fighting for women rights. She is also the founder of the SOFAD.
Julienne Lusenge is a Congolese human rights activist recognized for advocating for survivors of wartime sexual violence. She is co-founder and President of Female Solidarity for Integrated Peace and Development (SOFEPADI) and director of the Congolese Women's Fund (FFC).
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Jeannine Mukanirwa Tshimpambu is a Congolese women's rights activist. She has been recognised by Amnesty International for her work for women's rights and peace promotion.
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Olga Bianchi Droguett (1924–2015) was an Argentine-born Chilean filmmaker, feminist, pacifist and women's rights activist. As a result of her resistance to Augusto Pinochet, she fled Chile in 1975 and settled with her children in Costa Rica. A convinced pacifist, in the early 1980s she joined Liga Internacional de las Mujeres Pro Paz y Libertad (LIMPAL), the Latin American branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), becoming LIMPAL vice-president in 1986 and 1989. In addition, she served as LIMPAL's permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva. Bianchi was also a board member of Amnesty International in Costa Rica and a founding member of the human rights organization CODEHU, the Costa Rican representation with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.