Based in Gloucestershire, UK, my name is Elizabeth Willmott Harrop and I am a communications professional, writer, researcher and trainer specialising in international human rights, especially the rights of women and children.

Working life
After graduating in 1990, I worked in corporate marketing for several years. For the past 13 years, I have worked as a freelance contractor, primarily managing awareness activity for international, national and community-based non-profit organisations.

An experienced TV and radio spokesperson, I also facilitate training workshops, including on PR disciplines such as media interview techniques and crisis PR.

With a Masters Degree in Human Rights and Social Change from City University London, I have worked on projects for organisations including the United Nations International Secretariat in New York, the European Union in Romania and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, UNICEF and Amnesty International.

One of the things I most enjoy doing is distilling complex or controversial information in an engaging and clear-sighted manner. In this way, political and social topics become more accessible and can therefore be held up to scrutiny or campaigned upon, by a wider public.

War propaganda
It is rarely acknowledged, by the media, governments, or even anti-war campaigners, that war propaganda is illegal under international human rights law.

While at the UN in early 2003, I watched the war in Iraq unfold as a book already written, but presented as global consultation for an author's outline idea. This lead to my report Iraq: propaganda's war on human rights about the illegality of propaganda used by the UK and USA.

I am also an artist, and my facebook page a world of colour displays my portfolio of paintings, textile art and jewellery.

The rights of women and children
I am especially concerned about women's and child rights, motherhood and gender and their undermining by societal norms and policies. Hence my blog with articles on subjects from maternal access to at-risk babies to sexuality education and human rights, and my website section childbirth, parenting and human rights.

I have also written indepth articles on subjects including the sexualisation of children and female-perpetrated child abuse which you can find on the freelance writing and human writes pages.

Other concerns
In relation to the above topics and broader human rights concerns, I am interested in the application of international human rights law in upholding rights at a domestic level.

I have a keen interest in the rights of animals and their suffering as a result of consumer culture, for example in the commodifying of pets. Read my article about how fostering can help the current dog rescue crisis.