The CEDAW committee at the UN is looking closely and radically at women's productive and reproductive labour at the moment. Lambert's work in New York was about pushing this further, and especially encouraging the UN to not look just at the written law, but the practical, day-to-day effects of policy. To take an extreme example, a woman's right to vote is meaningless if no girls ever go to school.

A woman who works at a shelter for female victims of violence raised the same point that had been in my head - can words, laws and documents really protect people? Kilroy replied that it was just one more way to get abuse noticed, and solve a few real problems for people.

Pate said that sometimes you have to prove you have exhausted the legal solutions before moving onto direct action - and made the crucial point that people on the ground need to know that someone is fighting for them. She went on to describe the work her group is doing to teach female prisoners to be advocates for other prisoners.

Lambert explained that while she sees the work with the UN as important, the most important thing is building a culture that produces 'rights-claiming individuals', instead of human rights being something that activists 'do' to victims of abuse.

After this discussion, the final programmed speaker, Serina McDuff spoke briefly, but time was running out. I only have brief notes on two comments that she made: She'd like to see an expansive Bill of Rights/Human Rights Act in place now, and that the Government is very good at using Human Rights law to SAY it is doing good things, without actually doing them. That was a pity, because her resume sounds interesting:

"Serina McDuff is currently the Executive Director of the YWCA of Brisbane and is the youngest woman to lead the organisation. Since she began 18 months ago Serina has repositioned the Y in Brisbane to advocate and respond to women's issues...Serina's activism is centred on ensuring women's and young' people's rights are on the agenda for action, and advocating for systemic change."

Well, time for lunch. The Student Union's pizza cafe was open, so I had a double-garlic, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese (mozzarella) and cheese (fetta) pizza, washed down with a small bottle of Beez Neez honey beer. Damn, we activists do it tough.