Centre on Law & Social Transformation together with the Bergen Resource Center invites you to the breakfast seminar The Zika epidemic: Human rights perspectives on the public health responses in Latin America.
The outbreak of the Zika virus infection in Latin America poses big challenges concerning public health in the region. Join us for an interesting discussion with Camila Gianella, Lara Côrtes and Berit Austveg on several related topics from water supply and sanitation conditions to pregnancy and abortion rights.
Click here to see the Facebook event.
Camila Gianella is a global fellow at the centre and a researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI). Camila has worked as researcher and consultant for projects on maternal mortality, the right to health, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, mental health and transitional justice. She has also as a counsellor in HIV and Tuberculosis services, and with asylum seekers. Gianella is currently working on the research project “Abortion Rights Lawfare in Latin America” – a study on the legal and political battles over women’s sexual and reproductive rights in the region and Latin American women’s right to decide over their bodies.
Berit Austveg is a doctor and a physician, who has been working with sexual and reproductive health and rights since 1994She was at the board of Ipas for 6 years, and chairing the board of trustees of Reproductive Health Matters for 8 years. Austveg has experience from mulilateral leven in WHO, UNFPA and the World Bank, on bilateral level in Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Tanzania and at national level in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norad, the Norwegian Directorate of Helath and the Norwegian Board of Health Supervision. In Oslo, she was in charge of Health Service for Immigrants, a clinic specifically directed towards the needs of immigrant women, for 12 years. She has also written numerous articles and chapters in books on women’s health and reproductive rights, like the book Kvinners helse på spill (“Women’s Health at Stake. A global and Historic perspective on deliveries and abortions”) which se authored in 2006 and the article Perpetuating power: some reasons why reproductive health has stalled (RHM, 2011).
Lara Côrtes is a Brazilian lawyer and researcher affiliated with the centre. She has a PhD in Public Law from the University of São Paulo and her focus is on the promotion of social rights and the functioning of institutions within States.
For those who read Spanish, it is highly recommended to read Alicia Yamin’s insightful comments in an interview with her in El País.
During the spring of 2016 the Centre will host a number of meetings focusing on questions related to interdisciplinary research on law and social change.