Mary S. Worden

Focus areas: Human Rights, Business and Human Rights, China, Asia, Sport and Human Rights, Campaigning

As Human Rights Watch's Director of Global Initiatives, Minky Worden develops and implements international outreach and advocacy campaigns, and oversees all research, advocacy and communications on sport and human rights worldwide. Worden’s recent research documents systemic child abuse, sexual abuse and harassment in sport, and she is pressing for the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to sport federations and the business of sport globally. Worden previously served as Human Rights Watch's Media Director, working with the world’s journalists to help them cover crises, wars, human rights abuses and political developments in some 90 countries worldwide. Worden has taught as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs since 2013. Before joining Human Rights Watch in 1998, Worden lived and worked in Hong Kong as an adviser to Democratic Party chairman Martin Lee and worked at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. as a speechwriter for the U.S. Attorney General.  A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Worden speaks Cantonese and German. She has edited three books, including, Torture (2004, the New Press), China's Great Leap (2008, Seven Stories Press), and The Unfinished Revolution (2012, Seven Stories Press), and serves as board member or board chair of non-profits including The Human Trafficking Legal Center and the Center for Human Rights in Iran.