OWL hosts women's rights conference

The Organization of Women Leaders is hosting its first Conference on International Women's Rights starting today and running through tomorrow night. The event will include speeches by celebrated champions of women's causes and performances by University dance and a capella groups.

"The idea of the conference is to remind people that [the status of] women at Princeton is not [the status of] women everywhere," said Nancy Ippolito '03, co-president of OWL and an organizer of the event.

The event — which OWL has planned since November and funded with about $30,000 — will begin tonight with a dinner in the Frist Multipurpose room. The keynote address will be given by Zohreh Tabatabai, the United Nation's former Focal Point for Women. Tabatabai now works for the International Labor Organization and will speak about breaking through the "glass ceiling," according to event organizer Nanci Saedi '03.

Tomorrow, speakers will include president of the National Organization of Women Patricia Ireland and University professors Elizabeth Bogan and Patricia Fernandez-Kelly. In addition, Uganda refugee Yudana Nanyonga and Algeria refugee Halima Addoyu will relate their experiences.

"We hope that this can get more people on campus involved in women's rights," Saedi said. "There aren't that many conferences or lectures about [women's rights] on campus . . . It just hasn't been presented before."

Tomorrow afternoon, female a capella groups — the Wildcats and the Tigerlillies — will perform, as well as University belly dancing group Raks Odalisque and African dance group Echoes D'Afrique.

Topics covered in the discussions will range from abuses of women such as torture and sex trades to everyday concerns such as breast cancer.

"With the guidance of notable speakers who are experts on the topic, as well as smaller discussion groups focusing on poverty, oppression, race, health, violence and leadership, we want participants to discuss not only the current situations, but also future solutions," the OWL conference mission statement read.

Ippolito added that the conference is open to anyone interested, but those students who would like to attend the dinners should register by visiting OWL's website.

Originally, OWL hoped to make the conference an Ivy League event, sending formal invitations to the other seven schools. However, because this is OWL's first conference, Saedi said, the other schools were not as enthusiastic as OWL had hoped.

"We're hoping that it will be very popular and that they'll come next year," Saedi said. "We want people to get involved and have it be an annual event."