Bio

• Women's rights, trafficking, slavery, environmental justice, international development• Direct adviser to Burmese Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, currently under house arrest• Founder, Boston Coalition Against Trafficking and Slavery

Shalini Nataraj was the first Director of Advocacy and Partnerships at the Global Fund for Women, where she was formerly the Vice President of Programs overseeing a grants program that disbursed over $8.5 million annually to support women’s rights initiatives worldwide.

Nataraj came to GFW from the Reebok Human Rights Program, where she served as Associate Director of the Reebok Human Rights Award Program. Before joining Reebok, Nataraj worked for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee as the acting director of international programs supporting social movements to promote women’s health and reproductive rights and political and civil human rights.

She has worked closely with the Burma democracy movement and has been involved with direct consultations with Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese government-in-exile, and a wide range of Burma democracy groups.

Nataraj has worked on ending the practice of trafficking for over 12 years, and co-founded the Boston Coalition Against Trafficking and Slavery. She is also a founder of the Alliance for Secularism and Democracy in South Asia and worked to promote human rights and democracy in Rwanda, Burundi and neighboring countries following the Rwandan genocide with human rights and policy advocacy groups in the region and the US.

She serves on the boards of Grantmakers Without Borders and the Women’s Funding Network, among others, and serves on the advisory committees of several more social justice and human rights organizations.

She has spoken extensively on issues of human rights, particularly on the need for a gendered approach to rights. She possesses over 23 years experience in the fields of environmental justice, international development and human rights, working internationally as well as in the United States.

Nataraj has a Masters degree in Social Science from Long Island University, NY, and a BS from Stella Maris College, Madras, India.

Follow Nataraj on Twitter @shalinat.

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