Professor of History at the University of Arizona

Email: benlaw@email.arizona.edu

Dr Benjamin N. Lawrance is the former Conable Chair in International Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology and is currently a professor of history at the University of Arizona. He has conducted field research in West Africa since 1997 and published extensively about political and social conditions. He has served as an expert witness in the asylum cases for  over 130 West Africans in the US, Europe and Canada which have involved human trafficking, citizenship, statelessness, female genital cutting, gender issues, gender identity, ethnic and religious violence, and witchcraft accusations. He has provided reports on human rights abuses, extra-judicial executions, political conditions, targeted political violence and persecution in Ghana.

Email: lyoung@prorightsconsulting.com

Laura is a US-trained human rights lawyer based in Nairobi, Kenya who works across sub-Saharan Africa as a consultant on governance and human rights for USAID, the UN, governments, and international NGOs. Laura has published numerous articles and reports focused on conflict dynamics, gender, minority rights, transitional justice, migration, health, and other human rights issues in the African context. Laura has provided expert input for immigration and asylum cases in both the US and UK, focused on LGBT, FGM/C, domestic violence, trafficking, access to health services (including mental health and HIV), ex-combatants, ethnic minorities, disability access, police protection, and other key issues.

Email: Mf610@st-andrews.ac.uk

Dr Mattia Fumanti teaches social anthropology at the University of St Andrews, UK, in the department of social anthropology. After completing his PhD on political and generational transformations in a Namibian town (Manchester 2005), Mattia Fumanti has conducted research among Ghanaian migrants London on an ESRC-funded project ‘New African Migrants in the Gateway City: Ethnicity, Religion, Citizenship’, directed by Professor Pnina Werbner, Keele University. The research has explored African ethnicity as it is currently evolving in contemporary Britain, with particular emphasis on the incorporative role of churches and religious identities in creating the ground for active citizenship. Part of this research aimed to explore the significance of transnational and religious networks between Ghana and the diaspora. For this reason in 2007 and 2010 he conducted ethnographic research in Kumasi and Accra in different churches. He has published widely on this topics and he is currently editing a film on current religious practices in Ghana. He is willing to provide COI on migration, transnational families, witchcraft and citizenship.

Email: sh888@cornell.edu

Since 2002, Saida has conducted ethnographic research in Ghana on women’s NGOs, Ghanaian advocacy to end FGM/C, and Ghanaian advocacy against domestic violence. She has also conducted community-based ethnographic research in the Upper East region of Ghana on women’s historical experiences with FGM/C and their responses to NGO and government interventions. Her focus has been on examining the process of ending of cutting in Ghana, which is regionally uneven, and different among various ethnic groups. She has testified in several cases and her expertise allows her to testify with regards to persons from the Upper East region of Ghana. In the areas where Saida has conducted research, adult women are not forced to undergo cutting, so she would not be able to testify to the fear of future prosecution on behalf of an adult woman who makes an asylum claim on the basis of a future threat of getting cut. Saida is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Cornell University.