Our Coordinating Committee
The Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law (GCEFL) is led by a Coordinating Committee of eight leading women’s rights, human rights, and faith-based organisations:
Equality Now
Since 1992, Equality Now has existed to end violence and discrimination against women and girls, using the power of the law to bring about systemic change. The advocacy work of Equality Now has resulted in the repeal of more than 50 sex discriminatory laws, including recently in Syria, Switzerland, Lebanon, and Jordan. Meanwhile, its work has been instrumental in the enactment of laws against all forms of violence against women, including rape, sex trafficking, and harmful practices such as child marriage, ‘honour’ crimes, and female genital mutilation. The Secretariat of GCEFL is currently based at Equality Now.
Act Church of Sweden
Act Church of Sweden is an international faith-based development and aid organisation, which is an integral part of the Church of Sweden. Together with more than 300 partners, in around 23 countries, Act Church of Sweden works on issues related to gender justice and equality, such as sexual rights and reproductive health (SRHR), combating child marriage and violence against women, LGBTIQ+ rights and advancing the economic rights of women. Since 2018, it has also worked specifically to reform discriminatory family laws.
Latin America and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (CLADEM)
CLADEM is a regional feminist network that works to contribute to the full validity of women’s rights in Latin America and the Caribbean, using the law as a tool for change. Since 2002, it has enjoyed recognition to participate in the activities of the Organization of American States. CLADEM employs a socio-legal approach, seeks social transformation and the construction of radical democracies. It takes an intersectionality perspective, which recognises cultural, ethnic/racial, sexual, intergenerational and social diversity for the full exercise and enjoyment of the human rights of all women.
Musawah
Musawah (‘equality’ in Arabic) is a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, composed of NGOs, activists, scholars, legal practitioners, policymakers, women, and men from around the world. It has carried out extensive mapping of Muslim family laws, policies, and practices in more than 38 countries and produced key resources on Muslim family law-related issues. Musawah believes that equality in the family is possible through a holistic approach that brings together Islamic teachings, universal human rights principles, fundamental rights and constitutional guarantees, and the lived realities of women and men today.
Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV)
MPV advocates for human rights, social justice, and inclusion in the United States and around the world. MPV is a progressive Muslim voice on contemporary issues, and voices its perspectives with policy briefs, by participating in civil discourse. Since its foundation more than a decade ago in Los Angeles, MPV has actively built a thriving global and national progressive Muslim movement. It has provided an alternative, universalist Islamic human rights framing to the most important issues of our time, including gender equality, LGBTQIA+ rights, freedom of religion and belief, and bodily autonomy.
Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) *
* represented by The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)
SOAWR is a coalition of more than 80 civil society organisations working across 33 countries. Established in 2004, SOAWR works to ensure that the rights of girls and women as articulated in the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa (“The Protocol”) are prioritised by policymakers on the African continent.
FEMNET is a pan-African, feminist, membership network, with more than 800 members across 49 African countries. Since its inception in 1988, FEMNET has positioned itself as a convenor, organiser, and facilitator on dialogues around issues including women’s involvement in governance and leadership, women’s economic justice, sexual and reproductive health and rights, ending gender-based violence and harmful practices, and strengthening the women’s movement in Africa. FEMNET mobilises African women and girls to lobby and advocate for the domestication and implementation of commitments made by African governments to the advancement of gender equality and the realisation of women’s rights.
Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP)
WLP is a coalition of 20 global women’s rights organisations across the Global South that promote gender equality. For more than two decades, WLP and its partners have worked to change harmful practices and discriminatory laws that perpetuate gender discrimination in the family, community, and society. It conducts research, provides resources, facilitates training, and holds international dialogues to reform discriminatory family laws and ensure women’s rights and freedoms.
UN Women
As the United Nations organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, UN Women advocates for legislative and constitutional reforms that repeal discrimination and foster consensus around implementation so that they become a lived reality for women. UN Women promotes the crucial role of gender-response laws in unlocking the development potential and economic prosperity of states.
GCEFL
Campaign Manager
Hyshyama Hamin
Hyshyama Hamin is the Campaign Manager of GCEFL. She manages all aspects of the campaign and supports the building of a broader coalition of engaged stakeholders comprising UN agencies, international NGOs, regional bodies and networks, local civil society groups and policymakers – especially in target countries – to advocate for family law reform.
Born in Sri Lanka, Hyshyama grew up in Nepal and is now based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She is a researcher and activist with more than 14 years’ experience working on women’s rights, primarily in the Global South. With a passion for advocacy campaigns and movement-building focusing on family law reform, she previously led Musawah‘s Global Campaign for Justice and international advocacy work.
In 2016, Hyshyama co-authored the seminal study “Unequal Citizens – Muslim women’s struggle for equality and justice in Sri Lanka”. The study led to the formation of an advocacy group called MPLRAG, which is at the forefront of pushing for reform of the discriminatory Muslim family law and Quazi court system in the country.
As a Fulbright scholar and Sié Fellow, Hyshyama obtained her MA in International Human Rights at Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.
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GCEFL believes that through collective action we can build a global voice demanding equal rights for women and girls in all matters relating to the family. Join GCEFL as a member to participate in global and regional advocacy, benefit from national level amplification, share thought leadership and expertise, and access information and resources.
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