Amal El Basha, a prominent advocate for women’s rights, has a background in the public sector in Yemen as well as in the UN system. She is the chair-person of Sisters’ Arab Forum for Human Rights, defending the rights of women, prisoners and refugees, and fighting for more political freedoms. She also serves as advisor for the International Coalition for the Criminal Court and for the Ministry of Human Rights in Yemen.
Throughout her career, having had various positions with the United Nations, the International Human Rights Law Group and the International Committee of the Red Cross Delegation in Yemen, Basha has been an active human rights defender, speaking out against torture and for the rights of arbitrarily detained prisoners. In 2009, she worked together with other Yemeni human rights organizations to submit a comprehensive report to the United Nations on torture in Yemen.
Amal El Basha studied political science, economics and mass communication at the American University in Cairo. She holds a postgraduate degree in Public Administration from the National Institute for Administrative Sciences (NIAS), and in one in Empirical Research and Women Studies from Sana’a University. Basha has also completed a Master’s degree in International Development and Gender at the University of Sussex, UK.
In October 2016, Amal El Basha participated in the Mediation Conference that Operation 1325 organized in cooperation with the Swedish Institute in Alexandria. The Mediation Lab is an intiative to promote women mediators. You can read more about it here.
