Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Participate in Senior Roundtable for Women’s Justice

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Avon Products Inc., President and CEO Andrea Jung, will give the keynote address at the Department of State’s Senior Roundtable for Women’s Justice on March 12, 2008 in the Loy Henderson Auditorium at the Department of State at 2:00p.m.

As part of International Women’s Day 2008, the Department of State is hosting this Roundtable to call attention to violence against women. Judges from twenty states and seventeen countries will gather to strategize on how to combat the growing trend of violence against women. From rape to trafficking to domestic violence, crimes against women are escalating worldwide, and courts, police and prosecutors often are unwilling or unable to catch and punish the perpetrators. Secretary Rice announced the Roundtable in September of 2007 during a meeting of the high-level Women Leaders' Working Group, a group chaired by Secretary Rice which meets periodically to address the most serious challenges to women's empowerment. The Roundtable features attorneys general, Supreme Court judges, and human rights advocates from around the world, as well as U.S. judges and organizations active in the field of women’s empowerment.