Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Professor Yanghee Lee, immediate past Chair and current Vice Chair, Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Professor Yanghee Lee has been a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child since 2003 and served as its Chair from 2007 until 2011 and has since been its Vice Chair. Professor Lee is a founding member of the Korean Association for Persons with Autism, the Korean Council for Children’s Rights and the Korean Society for the Rights of Children with Disabilities. She serves on the Executive Board of the Korean Association for Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, Korean Council for Children’s Rights, the UNICEF National Committee of Korea, and Save the Children Korea, Advisory Committee of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, and Advisory Committee for Human Rights Education of the Ministry of Justice.

Professor Lee’s research publications have focused on the identification, treatment, and prevention of developmental disabilities; child abuse and neglect; early intervention; development and validation of diagnostic tools and therapeutic intervention programs; and counseling young children. She is a well-practiced keynote speaker, having delivered addresses at numerous International Conferences and World Congresses. We are honored to have Professor Lee as one of our keynote speakers. 


Emeritus Professor Ron McCallum AO, Chair, Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Professor McCallum is currently Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a post to which he was unanimously elected in 2010.

Professor McCallum served as the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Sydney from 2002 until 2007.  He was elected and served as inaugural president of the Australian Labour Law Association from 2001 to 2009.

Since 2006, he has been a member of the board of Vision Australia Pty Ltd, and in November 2006 he was appointed as one of the two Deputy-Chairs of this board.

Professor McCallum has been well recognized for his career achievements. In early 2003, the Australian Government awarded Professor McCallum a Centenary Medal for his role as a labour law scholar and for his role as a disabled citizen in our nation. In the 2006 Queen’s Birthday honours list, Professor McCallum received the designation of Officer in the Order of Australia for his services to tertiary education, for industrial relations advice to governments, for assistance to visually impaired persons and for social justice. He was the NSW Senior Australian of the Year for 2011.


Kelly Ryan, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Border Security, US Department of Homeland Security.

Ms. Ryan is currently acting as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Border Security at the US Department of Homeland Security. She is responsible for oversight of immigration policy and development in all DHS mission areas relating to immigration. From 2002 to 2009, she was a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Ms. Ryan will be speaking about current gaps and challenges in the US system.

 

Plenary Speakers

  • Shafallah Representative, One Billion Strong, Presentation of the Doha Shafallah Statement
  • Mary Crock, University of Sydney, ‘The Putative Child and the tyranny of deterrence theory’
  • Anne Graham, Southern Cross University, Researching with children and participation
  • Carmel Guerra, Centre for Multicultural Youth
  • Louise Newman AM, Monash University, Mental health of young refugees: better approaches to identification of those at risk and interventions,
  • Ben Saul, University of Sydney
  • Anne Graham, Southern Cross University
  • John Tobin, Melbourne University
  • Dr Angela Coco, Southern Cross University
  • Bradley Shipway, Southern Cross University
  • Robert Lingard, Southern Cross University

Panel Speakers

  • Safak Pavey, Turkish Parliament, UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
  • Kate Pope PSM,  Department of Immigration and Citizenship
  • Rick Towle, UNHCR Representative for Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific

Session Speakers

Settlement

Children and Citizenship

Displacement, Development and Vulnerability

Identifying vulnerability

Asylum

Refugees and Disability

Dinner Speaker

  • Safak Pavey, Turkish Parliament, UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities