Jalila Haider Receives The International Women of Courage Award

She is one of the 12 women to receive this honor.

jalila haider award

Jalila Haider is a 31-year-old attorney from Quetta. She is the first woman lawyer from the Hazara community. At a very young age, she’s shown why female attorneys are just what the public needs today.

 

 

Apart from being a human rights attorney, political activist, and rights defender, she also runs a non-profit organization ‘We The Humans‘. The organization was founded in 2015 and focuses on providing underprivileged people of Balochistan with legal help and opportunities.


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Being from Hazara, Jalila knows what victimization of a minority group looks like, from a very real and personal perspective. Her core focus has been to uplift the people of Balochistan, especially Hazara.

Here are the focus areas that her organization is working on;

  • Gender and Child Protection,
  • Education,
  • Water and Environmental Sanitation,
  • Democracy and reforms Livelihood,
  • Natural Resource Management,
  • and Human and Institutional Development

In 2019 Jalila was honored to be a part of The BBC’s 100 women of 2019 list, a recognition that was well-deserved. She was listed among people like Parveena Ahanger of Kashmir, and Jasmin Akter of Bangladesh.

 

 

On March 3rd, 2020 the State Department of USA announced the recipients of 2020 International Women of Courage Award. Among the 12 other women from around the globe was Jalila Haider, for whom they wrote:

Known as the Iron Lady of Balochistan, Jalila Haider is a human rights attorney and founder of “We the Humans – Pakistan”, a non-profit organization to lift local communities by strengthening opportunities for vulnerable women and children. She specializes in defending women’s rights and provides free counseling and legal services to poverty-affected women.

The first female attorney of her Hazara community, Haider led a peaceful hunger strike to recognize the right to life for the Hazara following a series of targeted attacks. Ms. Haider has taken up the cause of many other vulnerable communities.

As Balochistan’s President of the Women Democratic Front and Balochistan’s branch of the Aurat (Woman’s) March, she fought against violence against women in public spaces, at work, and at home.


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Other winners

Other women on the list included the following:

  • Zarifa Ghafari (Afghanistan)
  • Lucy Kocharyan (Armenia)
  • Shahla Humbatova (Azerbaijan)
  • Ximena Galarza (Bolivia)
  • Claire Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso)
  • Sayragul Sauytbay (China)
  • Susanna Liew (Malaysia)
  • Amaya Coppens (Nicaragua)
  • Amina Khoulani (Syria)
  • Yasmin al Qadhi (Yemen)
  • Dr. Rita Nyampinga (Zimbabwe)

It is an honor for Pakistan to have strong, powerful and intellectual women working on the front lines to help in the betterment of the country and its people.

Jalila Haider received this award for the heart and soul she has put in all her projects. We hope to see her succeed every step of the way.

 

 

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