Key Takeaways
- Jalila Haider, a human rights lawyer, has received the Right Livelihood Award.
- She is the first female lawyer from her Hazara community to receive this honor.
- Haider has led hunger strikes and secured justice for thousands of marginalized groups.
Human rights lawyer and activist Jalila Haider has been honored with the Right Livelihood Award, often referred to as the 'alternative Nobel'.
The Swedish-based Right Livelihood Foundation bestowed the award on Haider for her groundbreaking work in breaking barriers and challenging ethnic, state, and patriarchal persecution.
In 2018, Haider led a seven-day hunger strike against the targeted killing of Hazaras, which led to direct negotiations between the army chief and Hazara women, resulting in a significant decrease in attacks against the community.
Through her legal work, Haider has secured justice for thousands of marginalized individuals, specifically ethnic, gender, and religious minorities, as well as refugees.
Her law firm has also helped restore freedom of movement for over 600 political activists and human rights defenders, according to the Right Livelihood Foundation.
Haider is a founding member of the Women’s Democratic Front and helped pioneer Balochistan’s first Women’s March, sparking discussions on feminism in a deeply patriarchal region.
Through her organization 'We the Humans', Haider has assisted over 400 widows of terrorism victims in gaining financial independence.
Despite facing detention, cyber-harassment, and death threats, Haider continues her work towards a world where, in her words, 'no human being is illegal'.
The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 by Jakob von Uexkull, a Swedish-German stamp collector, who sold part of his collection to fund the award.
Other recipients of the award included a prominent US artificial intelligence researcher, Timnit Gebru, and the Rural Women’s Assembly, a grassroots movement of small-scale farmers in Southern Africa.
