Human rights work at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
8th March 2013 London, UK
Guest blog by Julia Fenn, the British High Commissioner’s wife, on the importance of International Women’s Day and what this day means to her personally. I have celebrated International Women’s Day in Brunei for the last three years, though I have to confess that I never particularly marked the date anywhere else before. It is strange how […]
8th March 2013
Today is International Women’s Day, an annual event launched over a century ago, in 1910, to celebrate the social and economic achievements of women.
The situation for women since then has changed profoundly…
7th March 2013 Tashkent, Uzbekistan
This Friday, 8 March, is International Women’s Day. The Embassy will be closed for the holiday, so we are celebrating today, on Thursday 7 March. The men in the Embassy are bringing flowers and cake for the women. I’ve been out negotiating the purchase of eighteen bouquets (as with St Valentine’s Day, it seems the […]
6th March 2013
One of the skills a diplomat needs – or, at least, is very useful if they have it – is to understand people. How they think, their motivations, what affects their behaviour, and so on. There is a saying in English that you should try to “put yourself in someone else’s shoes”. In other words, […]
4th March 2013 Geneva, Switzerland
It’s not often that you go to an event at the UN and end up staying much longer than intended. Usually it’s the other way round. But this week’s high level panel on the ‘power of empowered women’ was one of the best UN discussions I’ve seen and a fitting prelude to international women’s day […]
25th February 2013 Geneva, Switzerland
Anyone who has been through a March session of the Human Rights Council knows that you never come out it of quite the same person as you go in. While the rest of the year’s meetings are important, seasoned Council goers will tell you that March is special. It’s the main event; the Saturday night […]
11th February 2013
I was privileged to chair Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr’s Magna Carta lecture, an annual event organised by the British High Commission here. Each year we ask a prominent figure to speak about a modern issue relevant to the values enshrined in the 1215 charter, often described as the greatest constitutional document of all time. […]
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8th February 2013 Paris, France
One of the striking things about Britain and France is that our two societies are often dealing with very similar issues at the same time. There is a clear example of that this week where, in both the British Parliament and in the French National Assembly, the issue of gay marriage (or “mariage pour tous” […]
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6th February 2013
I had an interesting day last week. It began and ended with me handing out certificates to participants on courses the British Embassy had funded. The courses were for two very different Sudanese institutions. But they covered some common ground. The day began at the Higher Military Academy at the closing ceremony of a course […]
6th February 2013
Today we mark International Day of Zero Tolerance of Female Genital Cutting/Mutilation (FGM). FGM has existed in the culture and tradition of many societies for many years, causing untold psychological and physical damage to young girls. On this day it is important that we shine a light on an issue which affects so many, and […]