Denice Labertew, J.D.

Denice Labertew, J.D., M.A. is a feminist advocate and activist scholar with more than 35 years of experience supporting survivors of gender-based violence through local, national, and international policy development and direct advocacy. She is also a lecturer with an academic focus on gender studies, social justice, crime and victimization, advocacy, law and human rights at California State University, Northridge.  She is a 2024 recipient of a Fulbright Award to serve as a visiting scholar at the National Law University of India, Odisha with a focus on Gender, Queerness and the Law.

She is the founder of Women Lead Network, a collective of women leaders who center women’s experiences and elevate women leaders as the solvers of the world’s problems.  She has worked directly with survivors protecting their constitutional, educational, familial, and human rights, and led policy reforms on their behalf at a statewide, national, and international level.

She was an appointee to the United States Department of Education’s Federal Rulemaking Committee during the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (2013) and traveled on behalf of the U.S. Department of State to India as an Expert on Gender Based Violence after the highly publicized gang rape and murder of a young medical student in Delhi. She has worked with advocates in the U.K and Mexico on addressing domestic and sexual violence using a victim centered approach.

She received Congressional recognition for her work with Domestic Violence survivors and has served on the Boards of multiple governmental and non-governmental domestic violence agencies.  She was the co-lead researcher for the Mayor’s Fund of Los Angeles, partnering with the Social Science Research Center of California State University, Fullerton to assess the barriers to service for survivors of domestic violence in Los Angeles County and contributed to several white papers, governmental reports and practice manuals on working with survivors of gender-based violence.

She is engaged in human rights work on behalf of women and girls at the United Nations including co-authoring a report to the Human Rights Council highlighting the human rights abuses experienced by women and girls in U.S. immigration detention.  Her advocacy has also included the United States Universal Periodic Review in November of 2020, culminating in a number of recommendations by the council and testimony before the U.N. Committee on the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights in Geneva, Switzerland.  She has led Parallel Events at the CSW/NGO Forum for several years, during the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women meeting in New York, focusing on the experiences of women and gender violence.

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University Northridge in Sociology and Women’s Studies, her law degree from People’s College of Law in Los Angeles, and her Master of Human Rights from Curtin University in Australia.