Curriculum Vitae
Priti Darooka is a human rights defender from the South with expertise in women’s ESCR. She is the founder and executive director of PWESCR (Programme on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), an international advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, India, Sri Lanka and in Netherlands. Priti strives toPW build South feminist leadership and a human rights network with the capacity to monitor and advocate policy at all levels – national, regional and international. She works with the human rights frameworks and mechanisms to address all forms of inequalities including poverty. At PWESCR, she works to promote women’s human rights, especially in the context of economic, social and cultural rights by engendering policy, law and practice at local, national, regional and international levels. She has helped PWESCR develop its Leadership Institute in Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR), an innovative annual leadership development programme for women’s rights leaders from the Global South; and Garima, an annual leadership development programme for women working at community level, especially from marginalised communities, including Dalits, tribal, rural and ethnic minorities. PWESCR now has a growing network of over 400+ organisations, networks, movements and individual across global South and has began to make effective interventions at several policy discourses. Working in partnership with diverse groups and networks, Priti is part of several initiatives on women’s poverty, right to livelihoods and productive resoures including right to natural resorues (land, water and forests), right to social security, rights of women as workers including farmers, and producers, and concept of women’s work including unpaid work, and right to food. With Priti’s substantial expertise on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), PWESCR works closely with the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and various UN rapporteurs. Priti has assisted women from civil society groups from several countries to participate in CESCR review process. Civil society participation in CESCR process has contributed to a conducive environment for human rights at national level in several of these countries. Brining a feminist analysis to CESCR process has also resulted in further deepening of the Committee’s own understanding of women’s issues. Priti is a member of the Global Reference Group for Bread for the World. She is a member of UNRISD Social Protection and Human Rights Advisory Group. She is a founding member of SAFA (South Asian Feminist Alliance) for ESCR. A similar women’s ESCR alliance is emerging in Africa region too. She is a founder of Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors’ and a member of its core group. She is also the feminist focal person for Asia Pacific for CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE). She is a co- covenor of the National Forum for Action on Convergence (NFAC) in India, a resource platform that works with government for effective and inclusive models of governance. Priti has authored and presented numerous papers in various international conferences and forums. Priti was previously at the Ford Foundation in New York, United States, and assisted the organisation in its grant-making in the areas of international human rights; women’s rights and gender equity; and international economic policy. Prior to the Ford Foundation, she was at UNIFEM (United Nation’s Development Funds for Women) (now UN Women) where she worked on violence against women and coordinated UNIFEM’s work in Afghanistan. As a consultant to the Center for Women's Global Leadership, she organised a women's rights hearing at the UN conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa. She was the National Campaign Coordinator with UNITE for their Global Justice for Garment Workers Campaign. Priti has also worked with community-based organisations such as Manavi, and Urban Justice Center (UJC). She was also involved in the Stop FTAA (Free Trade Area of Americas) campaign and focused on different aspects of trade, and women’s lives, from a feminist and human rights perspective. She has a masters degree in women’s studies from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, United States.