HINA JILANI

 HINA JILANI

Pioneering lawyer and pro-democracy campaigner; a leading activist in Pakistan's women's movement and international champion of human rights.

A renowned lawyer and civil society activist, Hina Jilani has dedicated her life to fighting for human rights and democracy in Pakistan and around the world.

 

Jilani commenced practising law in 1979, while Pakistan was under martial law and she was  appointed  Advocate  of  the  High  Court  of  Pakistan  in  1981,  seven  years after  completing  her  law  studies. After qualifying as a lawyer, Hina Jilani established Pakistan’s first all-women law firm in 1981, followed by Pakistan’s first legal aid centre in 1986.

A prominent lawyer and civil society activist for the last three decades, Jilani specializes in human rights litigation and the human rights of women, children, minorities, and prisoners. Cases  she  has conducted  have  on  numerous  occasions have become landmarks in setting human rights standards in Pakistan. Hina Jilani was one of the founders of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Established in 1986, the Commission has branches throughout the country and is today the most important national body for the monitoring of rights violations.

She was appointed Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 1992.

Hina Jilani’s work in Pakistan in the field of women's activism has made her a target of hostile propaganda, arrests and abuse. Yet, despite repeated threats and intimidation, she continues to live in Lahore, working tirelessly to mobilise civil society and promote human rights.

 

At the international level, she became the first Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders and was the first woman to hold thispost inoffice, from 2000 to 2008. For the eight years worked to empower and protect rights defenders worldwide. During her tenure she identified common themes in the treatment of human rights defenders, including the culture of impunity; intimidation and lack of security; restrictions on freedom of assembly, expression, and association; and death threats against defenders who seek justice for past crimes.

Jilani has participated in formal and informal Expert  Group meetings of the  UN Human Rights Bodies, she has represented UN Agencies like UNICEF and UNIFEM at regional and international meetings and conferences as expert in specific fields of human rights. She has all through her  career worked both nationally and internationally with a range of NGOs and NGO networks, and is member of the council and founding board of several international human rights institutions.

2006 and 2009 she was appointed ,respectively, to the UN International Fact-Finding Commissions on Darfur and onthe Gaza Conflict.

In 2013, she joined The Elders, a group of statesmen, peace activists and human rights advocates, brought together by Nobel Peace Prizewinner Nelson Mandela.

In 2020, Hina Jilani was appointed to an International Commission of Inquiry into Systemic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in the United States, following the killing of George Floyd. In its report issued in April 2021, the Commission said police violence against African-Americans in the US amounted to “crimes against humanity”.

She has received a number of honours and awards, including the 2001 Millennium Peace Prize for Women, in recognition of her life-long contribution to peace-building and human rights.

In 1999 she was awarded the Human Rights Award by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, and in 2000 she was  honoured with the Amnesty International Genetta Sagan Award for Women’s Rights.