Mary Shanthi Dairiam

Mary Shanthi Dairiam (born 17 September 1939) is a Malaysian human rights and women's rights advocate and United Nations (UN) official. She became a member of the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO). In the mid 1980s, she was involved in the lobbying for the enactment of the Domestic Violence Act (which was eventually passed by parliament in 1994). She has since 2004 served on the UN's Gender Equality Task Force, and on the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women. From 2004 to 2008, she was also a member of the UN's CEDAW committee, within which she was appointed Rapporteur in January 2007.

In 2010, Dairiam was appointed as one of three UN experts to lead an inquiry into the Israeli navy's response to the Marmara flotilla that sought to break a blockade of Gaza.

Dairiam is the founder and a current director of International Women's Rights Action Watch - Asia Pacific, a charity devoted to the implementation of the CEDAW convention.

After a year, she set up IWRAW-Asia Pacific and is now regarded as an expert on Cedaw and provides technical services to several governments in the Asia Pacific region to build capacity for the implementation of Cedaw. Shanti’s book, A Woman’s Right To Equality: The Promise Of Cedaw, was launched at the Beijing +20 conference in Bangkok, Thailand recently.

After a year, she set up IWRAW-Asia Pacific and is now regarded as an expert on Cedaw and provides technical services to several governments in the Asia Pacific region to build capacity for the implementation of Cedaw. Shanti’s book, A Woman’s Right To Equality: The Promise Of Cedaw, was launched at the Beijing +20 conference in Bangkok, Thailand recently.