Pamela Shifman

Director, Initiatives for Girls and Women

Since May 2008, Pamela Shifman has served as the Director of Initiatives for Girls and Women at the NoVo Foundation, where she directs the Foundation’s work on empowering adolescent girls in the developing world and ending violence against girls and women.

Prior to joining NoVo, she worked at UNICEF where she spearheaded UNICEF’s efforts to prevent and respond to gender-based violence, particularly in conflict-affected settings.  Spending nearly forty percent of her time in the field, Pamela worked closely with UNICEF’s country offices in Darfur, Sudan, Eastern Congo, Liberia, Nepal and other conflict affected countries to improve efforts to end violence against girls and women.

Pamela also served as the co-chair of the UN Task Force against Sexual Abuse and Sexual Exploitation and was a founding member of UN Action against Sexual Violence.  Prior to joining the UN, Pamela served as the Co-Executive Director of Equality Now, where she focused extensively on trafficking of girls and women and sex tourism and worked closely with a coalition of organizations for passage of the first US legislation on trafficking in persons and the UN Transnational Crime Protocol on Trafficking in Persons.

Pamela worked at the Open Society Institute, Network Women’s Program and as legal advisor for the ANC Parliamentary Women’s Caucus in South Africa. As the Legal Advisor to the ANC Women’s Caucus, Pamela led a joint Civil society/Parliamentary Campaign to End Violence against Women and Girls, and participated in the development of South Africa’s first post apartheid legislation addressing domestic violence.  Pamela has taught Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan and at Hunter College, and she holds a BA from the University of Michigan and a JD from the University of Michigan Law School.