Director

Hannah Bond is Director of Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS). Hannah has worked with CSOs and government in the UK and Global South.  In the early stages of her career, Hannah worked for the Women’s National Commission, focusing on violence against women. She has since worked for humanitarian and development NGOs in the UK and Global South and for the British Embassy in Addis Ababa where she worked on Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somaliland. Hannah lived and worked for six years in Ethiopia, where she specialised in conflict, gender, human rights, community-based development and economic empowerment.  Hannah focused on conflict and gender in her Master’s degree at King’s College London.

GAPS Network Assistant

Amal Sabrie joined GAPS in October 2019. She completed her Master’s in international relations at the LSE where she applied a feminist lens to conflict, security, peacebuilding and militarisation. Her research focus is on gender essentialism and women and girls’ experiences in conflict zones and post-conflict society. Amal has a background in supporting local NGOs such as FORWARD (London) and Project Ahead (Naples) and as an intern at the House of Representatives in Minnesota.

Chair

Originally from Germany, Brita grew up in Venezuela, where she went to school and developed her keen passion for addressing poverty and inequality. Brita holds a master’s degree from Sussex University and has since overseen and carried out research projects on a number of different subjects such as gender equality and the new international aid architecture, networking for women’s organisations, UN reform, CEDAW and women’s human rights, violence against women and women’s civil and political participation. Brita has a strong record of work on women’s human rights, gender, social inequality, conflict and development. She has worked with a number of different national and international human rights and development institutions over the past 20 years, including Womankind Worldwide and the European Women’s Lobby in Brussels.  Brita led the Gender and Development Network in the UK as its Chair for five years. She also served as Commissioner to the National Women’s Commission from 2008-2010. Brita is currently the Executive Director of Women for Women International UK.

Antonia Mulvey is the Founder and Executive Director of Legal Action Worldwide and a UK lawyer with 20 years of experience in sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), human rights and international law. She has headed SGBV/Rule of Law programmes for the UN and INGOs across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Antonia is a visiting fellow at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security and an SGBV expert for UN Women, the Justice Rapid Response and the UK FCO Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative. Additionally, Antonia has been a visiting scholar at Columbia University Law school in New York. In 2017, Antonia was appointed as SGBV investigator for the UN International Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, through which she interviewed hundreds of Rohingya refugee survivors of brutal sexual and gender-based violence.  Antonia is also a member of the Steering Committee for the Lebanese Ministry of State for Economic Empowerment of Woman and Youth.  Her previous experience ranges from advising governments on judicial and legislative reform, notably including the Somali Sexual Offences Bill,  described by President Judge Vagn Joensen of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda as “the most comprehensive Bill on sexual crimes  seen anywhere.” Antonia founded the first Women Lawyers Association in Somalia and the first ‘one-stop’ centres for responding to SGBV in Somalia, established the first law faculty in Puntland, Somalia, established the first and establishing the first paralegal programmes in Darfur, Sudan.

Rainatou Sow is the founder & executive director of Make Every Woman Count (MEWC), an organisation that generates research, information knowledge and tools based on feminist principles from an African perspective to monitor, analyse and document the progress or lack thereof being made on the rights of African women. The organisation publishes an annual report as an audit of the status and conditions of women in each African country. Rai has over 10 years of experience working with the United Nations, African Union, International Organisations, CSOs, and policy-makers with a focus on advocacy, research and policy. She has extensive experience working with diverse organisations and groups on various gender initiatives where she brings at the table a strong analytical and research skills both quantitative and qualitative with a direct experience on monitoring, research, documenting and analysing developments in order to provide impartial assessments and expert advice on various issues related to women’s rights.

Lucy has worked at Amnesty International for more than eight years. Before Amnesty, she worked for Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam in Spain and Argentina. She has a strong track record of success on a broad range of human rights and development issues. She has led advocacy work on women’s rights for more than seven years, including work on violence against women, trafficking, women with insecure immigration status, women human rights defenders, Women Peace and Security, gender-based violence criteria in the UN Arms Trade Treaty and most recently on the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI).

Chair

Fiona Hodgson is Chair of the Advisory Group of GAPS.  She works on international women’s issues, especially in the context of developing and conflict countries. She has had a particular interest in women’s rights in Afghanistan. Fiona is on the Steering Board for the Foreign Secretary’s Initiative to Prevent Sexual Violence in Conflict and Post Conflict countries.  She is also on the Association of Oxfam, a Trustee of the Chalker Foundation, the Conservative Human Rights Commission and a Patron of Afghan Connection. Fiona was awarded the CBE in the New Year’s Honours List 2012 for her work on gender equality. She was appointed to the House of Lords in October 2013.

Anne-Marie Barcia de Leiva is a banking and finance professional. During her banking career she worked in New York, London, Hong Kong and South Asia. In London she launched her first all-female consultancy practice, providing training to bankers, investors and regulators in credit, corporate finance and risk management. She later sold that business to Fitch Ratings and subsequently co-founded Adeva Partners Ltd. She works on a global basis with both development banks and local wholesale and commercial banks in an advisory and training capacity. Anne-Marie has a long standing track record as an advocate of women. In the 1980s her company was one of the first to provide a flexible working environment for female finance professionals, working in markets around the world. Her philanthropic activities have been focused on fundraising to help the underprivileged, creating scholarships for schools and university. She is currently a trustee for UK Friends of Georgetown University and a member of the Georgetown University Library Board. She joined the GAPS Advisory Board in December 2014.

Christine Chinkin is Professor of International Law at the LSE and a barrister, a member of Matrix Chambers. Together with H. Charlesworth, she won the American Society of International Law, 2005 Goler T. Butcher Medal ‘for outstanding contributions to the development or effective realization of international human rights law’. She is an Overseas Affiliated Faculty Member, University of Michigan and has been a Scholar in Residence for Amnesty International (2005), as well as Visiting Professor at Columbia University (2004) and at the Arts and Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University (2003). In June 2017, Christine Chinkin was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to advancing women’s human rights worldwide.

Baroness Mary Goudie is a senior member of the British House of Lords and a global advocate for the rights of women and children. In the UK she is a founding member of The 30% Club which aims to influence chairs to bring more women onto corporate boards. She is an emeritus of the Board of Directors of Vital Voices Global Partnership. Goudie is a trustee of the El-Hibri Charitable Foundation, based in the US, whose aims are to foster interfaith dialogue to establish solutions to global challenges affecting mankind. She is a member of the UK Board of Directors for the Centre for Talent Innovation, a nonprofit think tank that focuses on challenges and issues pertaining to the workplace.  Goudie is an ambassador for ICRW, and a board member the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security.  She is also a member of the board for the Centre of Women, Peace and Security at the LSE.

She shares perspectives on her blog and can be followed on Twitter @BaronessGoudie.

Audrey is a former Foreign Office Legal Counsellor and an experienced international lawyer who specialises in human rights law, international election monitoring and gender equality. She was Director of the OSCE Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (1994-97) and Leader of the UK Delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission (1998-2002).  She has helmed 12 Election Observation Missions for the OSCE. She has worked with many international organisations and NGOs and developed the ODIHR’s capacity in the rule of law, human dimension, election observation and Roma.  Audrey helped to create the Ministry of Human Rights in Iraq (2004-6). She is a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust and adviser to the British Institute of Human Rights. She is on the Board of Electoral Reform International Services and most recently has become an adviser to GAPS, reflecting her belief in the need for women to play a part in any peace and stabilisation process in post conflict countries.

Lady Anne Greenstock is a former Patron of UN Women UK and a member of the Afghan Women’s Support Forum. She has previously worked for the FCO as a locally engaged Commercial Assistant in Dubai and Saudi Arabia, as well as working in the Overseas Visitors Section at the FCO and numerous FCO postings with her husband in Lebanon, Dubai, Washington DC, Saudi Arabia, Paris, DC, New York. Lady Anne Greenstock has served as a board member and then President of the Women’s International Forum at the UN from 1998 until 2003. She was also a board member, then Chairman of The Leche Trust from 2004 until 2018, and an Emeritus Trustee of Women for Women International UK.

Joan Link is a retired British diplomat. When working in the FCO, she led work on the development of action planning to take UNSCR 1325 from the UN in New York into concrete action at the national level, including the establishment of a UK National Action Plan in 2005-6.  She has also promoted engagement between UK government, parliamentarians and women’s organisations. Joan is Vice Chair of Peace Direct.

Joan is based in Northern Ireland and works as a board member for the Electricity Grid for Ireland (Eirgrid). She has recently stepped down as Chair of the Progressive Building Society in Northern Ireland. Joan has been Chair and Chief Executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission of NI, Women’s National Commission member for Northern Ireland and on the Board of the British Council. Joan was Federation President of Soroptimist International GB and Ireland and remains a member. She currently chairs the Woman’s Fund for Northern Ireland which aims to provide small grants to enhance women’s potential. Joan has been involved with GAPS for a number of years and is committed to its important work at home and overseas.