June Zeitlin

June Zeitlin took up her post as the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Gender Issues in January 2012. A leader on women’s issues for more than thirty years, she has extensive public-policy experience in the United States and globally. Zeitlin currently directs the CEDAW Education Project at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in Washington, DC. The Project educates policymakers and the public about the importance of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women for advancing women’s rights worldwide, including in the United States. From 1999 to 2008, she was the Executive Director of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, where she helped lead a successful global campaign for the creation of UN Women. From 1986 to 1999, she worked at the Ford Foundation, overseeing programmes on women’s rights, social justice and democratic governance, including newly initiated programmes in Central and Eastern Europe. After receiving a law degree from New York University School of Law in 1973, she worked in Washington, DC, for the late Congresswoman Bella Abzug and then joined the US Department of Health and Human Services as the Director of the Office on Domestic Violence.