Virgínia Brás Gomes

Virgínia Brás Gomes

Senior Social Policy Adviser and Former Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Virginia Brás Gomes is a Senior Social Policy Adviser in the Ministry of Employment, Solidarity and Social Security of Portugal.

She is also a former member of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights since 2006 where she served as Vice-Chair, Rapporteur and Chair of the Committee, as well as Co-rapporteur for the Committee’s General Comments No. 19, on the right to social security, and No. 23 on the right to just and favourable conditions of work.

She is also Chair of the Board of the Portuguese UNICEF Committee, a Member of the International Board of PWESCR (Programme for Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), of the International Advisory Council of the Equal Rights Trust, and of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Civil and Political Rights.

Virginia Brás Gomes was a distinguished Guest Lecturer in the LLM Programme in Intercultural Human Rights at the St. Thomas University School of Law (2018 and 2019); Invited expert at the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University / College of Asia & the Pacific (2015); Faculty member of the Leadership Institute in Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2011 to 2015).

She has conducted training courses in treaty body reporting and on human rights in Africa, Asia and Europe and wrote several articles in national and international publications. Her latest article, published in in 2019 in ILO 100: Law for Social Justice, celebrating the ILO centenary discussed the role of human rights treaty bodies to protect the right to work and rights at work.