PAVE 016: Being the executive director of UN women NL, Combatting violence against women, defending women’s rights and working for the LGTBI community on the Western Balkans with Marije Cornelissen PAVE: Professionals Against Violence Podcast

Marije Cornelissen is the executive director of UN Women the Netherlands. Previously she was a UN Women’s Representative of the Netherlands in 2016. Next to this she works as a freelance consultant for national and international institutions concerning human rights organizations and she gives courses and workshops on lobbying at Leiden University, Clingendael and the College of Europe. Marije Cornelissen grew up in a leftwing and feminist family. At a young age she participated in the demonstrations against the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the Netherlands. Since the 1990s Cornelissen has been active in the GreenLeft party. Between 1996 and 1997 she worked as an assistant to MEP Nel van Dijk on women’s rights. In addition she was active in the Feminist Network of the GreenLeft and she was active in the European Green Party, where she coordinated the dialogue between East and West European Greens. In 2009 she was a candidate for the European Parliament for the GreenLeft. The party congress put her on number three of the list, which was deemed unelectable. As a candidate for the European Parliament Cornelissen campaigned on social affairs, emancipation and anti-discrimination. She advocated increased solidarity between the member states of the […]