Mary Shanthi Dairiam
Born(1939-09-17)September 17, 1939
NationalityMalaysian
OccupationUnited Nations official
Known forHuman rights and women's rights advocate

Mary Shanthi Dairiam (born 17 September 1939)[1] is a Malaysian human rights and women's rights advocate. She was the elected member from Malaysia to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women serving the Committee from 2005 - 2008.

Education

Shanthi received a master's in English literature from the University of Madras in India in 1962. She received a master's in Gender and Development from the University of Sussex in the UK in 1991.[2]

Career

Although trained as an English teacher, Shanthi became interested in women's rights after volunteering with the Federation of Family Planning Associations (FFPA) in the late 1970s and seeing the inequalities women faced.[3]

In the mid-1980s, she was involved in the lobbying for the enactment of the Domestic Violence Act (which was eventually passed by parliament in 1994). She has since 2004 served on the UN's Gender Equality Task Force,[4] and on the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women.[5] From 2004 to 2008, she was also a member of the UN's CEDAW committee,[6] within which she was appointed Rapporteur in January 2007.

In 2010, Dairiam was appointed as one of three UN experts to lead an inquiry into the Israeli navy's response to the Marmara flotilla that sought to break a blockade of Gaza.[7]

Dairiam is the founder and a current director of International Women's Rights Action Watch - Asia Pacific, a global south feminist organisation devoted to the implementation of the CEDAW convention.[8] She played a critical role in developing a process for women's rights NGOs globally to be heard when their governments are up for review on the government's progressive implementation of the convention, and constructive dialogue with the CEDAW Committee . This process facilitates the submission of shadow or alternative reports as well as the presence of women's rights groups at the CEDAW Sessions in Geneva to engage with the CEDAW Committee.

After a year, she set up IWRAW-Asia Pacific and is now regarded as an expert on CEDAW and provides technical services to several governments in the Asia Pacific region to build capacity for the implementation of CEDAW. Shanthi's book, A Woman's Right To Equality: The Promise Of CEDAW, was launched at the Beijing +20 conference in Bangkok, Thailand in 2014.

References

  1. ↑ "Mary Shanthi Dairiam (Malaysia)" (PDF). Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Retrieved 22 October 2010.
  2. ↑ "Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights- Mary Shanthi Dairiam Biography" (PDF). Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  3. ↑ INDRAMALAR, S. (2015-01-02). "Fighting for equality in Malaysia". The Star Online. Retrieved 2019-11-13.
  4. ↑ Horn, Jordana (24 July 2010). "UN to investigate Marmara events". Jerusalem Post.
  5. ↑ "Significant progress made, but gender stereotyping still major obstacle to equality in Jamaica, women's anti-discrimination committee told". United Nations. 11 August 2006. Retrieved 22 October 2010.
  6. ↑ "International Expert Leads High Level Anti-Discrimination Forum for Royal Government of Cambodia". UNIFEM. 27 February 2009. Archived from the original on 28 March 2010. Retrieved 22 October 2010.
  7. ↑ "Israel rejects findings of UN rights probe of Gaza flotilla raid". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 23 September 2010.
  8. ↑ "Timor-Leste's Delegation to Present First State Report at CEDAW's 44th Session". UNIFEM. 7 July 2009. Retrieved 22 October 2010.
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