Human Rights Defenders
In an ever-changing world with shrinking civic space, the Global Campus strives to protect and strengthen the work of human rights defenders. We do this through educational, scholarship/fellowship and networking opportunities.
Supporting Human Rights Defenders as a joint responsibility
Supporting human rights defenders is community building. From our collaboration with the Sakharov Prize and Fellowship programme of the European Parliament to our joint implementation of programming with Right Livelihood to our vast network of those working to help Afghan civil society, we could not support human rights defenders alone. We continue to build our community partnership with other organisations who support and strengthen the capacity of human rights defenders.
Threatened Afghan Students and Scholars Programme
The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021 sparked a severe human rights crisis, prompting the Global Campus to establish a scholarship programme for at-risk Afghan scholars and students. This initiative provided academic opportunities and financial support across its network of universities. Beyond education, the programme included events with human rights defenders, tailored online courses, and community gatherings like Nowruz celebrations, fostering solidarity among displaced Afghans and advocating against violence.
These efforts reflect the Global Campus’s commitment to education, advocacy, and community-building during this challenging period.
Reconceptualising Exile
In 2022, the “Reconceptualising Exile” initiative was introduced by the Global Campus of Human Rights and Right Livelihood. This project brings together academics and human rights advocates from all around the world who have been driven into exile by oppressive governments.
This programme has three objectives. First, we make sure fellows can succeed both personally and professionally by offering them comprehensive support in their host locations. Building on the solidarity between the fellows and supporting to increase their impact, our second goal is to create a transnational network of support. Thirdly, we are seeking to extract learnings from the lived experiences of human rights defenders in exile and disseminate our findings towards creating a stronger enabling network for human rights activism worldwide.
Venice School for Human Rights Defenders
The Venice School for Human Rights Defenders is a training initiative aimed at activists and human rights defenders wishing to address contemporary challenges and cross-cutting issues in the field of human rights protection. The school aims at empowering participants with the knowledge, skills, and networks necessary to drive meaningful change in their communities and strengthen the global movement for human rights and social justice.
Artificial Intelligence and Child Rights
The Global Campus is implementing a range of projects exploring a human rights and child rights based approach to AI, examining the risks and opportunities AI presents for children and their rights.
We will post updates soon!
Featured projects
From advancing child rights strategic litigation globally, to regionally-focused initiatives—such as addressing issues around children in migration in the Balkans and integrating development frameworks in Africa—the Global Campus has implemented a range of impactful projects worldwide. Together, these projects aim to advance research, advocacy, and practical solutions that empower children and address the complex challenges they face in diverse contexts, driving a global movement for children’s rights.
We will post updates soon!
Team
Barbara Strasser
Children’s Rights Manager
Barbara Strasser oversees the development and implementation of children’s rights projects under the Global Campus – Right Livelihood cooperation, in close coordination with Child Rights Specialists in the 8 regional hubs of the Global Campus.
Barbara is a child protection specialist with extensive on-the-ground experience working in complex emergencies, focusing on conflict-affected contexts. She has worked with the ICRC and INGOs and has striven to promote and implement right-based approaches to humanitarian work, with a focus on child rights.
Main areas of expertise: Children and Armed Conflict, including Children Associated with Armed Forces and Armed Groups (CAAFAG), protection of children on the move, case management for children affected by violence and abuse, including child survivors of trafficking, child rights programming and child protection systems strengthening. Barbara holds a Master’s degree in Social Anthropology from Vienna University, and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Juvenile Justice from Geneva University.
John Paul P. A. Amah
Children’s Rights Officer
John Paul P. A. Amah joined the Global Campus of Human Rights as an intern in 2021. He worked with the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty team and supported the project management on children’s rights. Presently, he is the Child Rights Officer based in Venice and supports activities of the Children’s Rights Department.
Before joining the Global Campus, he worked for 10 years as youth and adolescent educator and counsellor in different regions of Cameroon. He also worked as Field Officer for ‘Human Is Right’, a Cameroon-based NGO where he undertook field missions and documented human rights violations in the English-speaking parts of Cameroon under armed conflict.
He holds a Master’s degree in Human Rights and Democratisation from the EMA Programme. He also holds a Post Graduate Teachers’ Diploma Grade II, obtained from Ecole Normale Superieure, University of Yaounde I, a Maitrise en Droit, from the University of Yaounde II, and a Bachelor’s in Management and Environment Geography, from the University of Dschang, all in Cameroon. His research interests on children’s rights include children’s right to participation and their right to education.
Manu Krishan
Global Study Programme Manager
Manu Krishan is the Global Study Programme Manager and coordinates all activities related to the dissemination and follow-up to the Study.
During the Global Study implementation he was the Coordinator and Assistant to the Independent Expert leading the United Nations Global Study on Children deprived of Liberty based first at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights followed by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human rights in Geneva.
Manu Krishan studied philosophy before graduating from the Vienna Master of Arts in Human Rights at the University of Vienna. He is a human rights researcher and Project Manager with proficiency in children’s rights, particularly on ethical considerations when researching with and for children.
Chiara Altafin
GC Research Manager
Dr. Chiara Altafin leads various research-based activities and projects at the GC Headquarters, with a primary focus on strengthening research, education, training, network-building and advocacy for the rights of children. Since September 2015 she has also worked as EMA Fellow, and lectures on topics related to human rights, International and European law, coordinates and teaches in the Children’s Rights Cluster, and conducts academic skills, legal research methods and thesis proposal workshops.
Chiara holds a Ph.D in International Law from the European University Institute, an LL.M in Comparative, European and International Law from the EUI, a Master’s in Rule of Law, Democracy and Human Rights from LUISS University, and graduated cum laude at the Law Department of Roma Tre University. She was a visiting research scholar at the Center for International and Comparative Law of the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor. Her main research interests concern economic, social and cultural rights in times of crisis, including in contexts of armed conflict and occupation, children’s rights, business and human rights, social justice, environmental and climate justice, and governance.
Chiara leads the UN Global Study component of the ACRiSL project (2020-2023), focusing on children’s rights affected by migration-related detention. She has also led a project aimed at enacting the Global Study recommendations in the European Context, engaging with ENOC as well as national and regional ombudspersons in Italy. In 2018-2019 she was lead researcher on the situation of ‘children living in prisons with their primary caregivers’ for the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, and the main author of the related chapter.
Chiara is one of the editors of GC Human Rights Preparedness. Previously she edited the GCHRJ’s first special focus on children’s rights. She coordinated the EMA research contributions to the Global Classroom 2021 and 2020. She contributed to the GC MOOCs on ‘Children Deprived of Liberty’ and ‘Child Participation and the Right to a Sustainable Environment’. In 2016-2017 she was senior researcher on the FP7 FRAME project.
Over the last thirteen years Chiara worked as lecturer and research and teaching assistant in International Law, International Organization and Human Rights, Human Rights and International Protection, International Protection of Cultural Heritage, and International Criminal Law at LUISS University, where she also was a member of the Research Team on the FP7 PRIV-WAR project. She conducted research and editorial activities for IAI (Istituto Affari Internazionali). She worked as a trainee lawyer at Avvocatura Generale dello Stato in Rome (2005-2007) and has been admitted to the Italian Bar.
Rocío Comas
Children’s Rights Officer - GC Latin America & the Caribbean
Rocío works as a Children’s Rights Regional Officer in Latin America & the Caribbean mainly to ensure the mainstreaming of children’s rights within LATMA’s activities. She also supports the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty follow-up initiation process by organising activities related to children’s rights within the region.
Rocío is also conducting a PhD at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany as a fellow scholar for the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Prior to this, she obtained a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina and a Master’s in Human Rights and Democratization at the University of San Martin (Cohorte 2014-15).
Following her Masters, she published her thesis ‘Gender and the best interests of the child in the administration of justice: Case Analysis in Argentina’. She also gained experience as a human rights consultant at the Regional Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Chile, working specifically on the promotion and protection of human rights through the Universal Periodic Review-UPR- mechanism.
She has published articles in the field of migration, children’s rights, enforced disappearances, economic, social and cultural rights, the UN Agenda 2030 and the right to Food.
Elvis Fokala
Children’s Rights Officer - GC Latin America & the Caribbean
Elvis is the Manager of the Children’s Rights Unit at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. Previously, Elvis worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Stellenbosch as well as a substitute university teacher at the Institute for Human Rights, Åbo Akademi University.
Elvis completed his PhD at the Institute for Human Rights, Åbo Akademi University, with a focus on child participation in family decision-making processes in Africa. He writes and publishes predominantly on children’s rights within the African context. His research interests include: International Children’s Rights, Public International Law, (relating to Africa), African Human Rights System, Constitutionalism in Africa (relating to vulnerable groups).
Nejira Pasic
Children’s Rights Officer - GC South East Europe
Nejira is a researcher and analyst in the field of human rights and geopolitics. She currently works as the Children’s Rights Regional Officer for the region of South-East Europe, collaborating closely with the ERMA programme on implementing children’s rights projects and activities into the activities of the programme. After completing her BA studies in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Buckingham, she obtained an MA degree at the ERMA programme.
Nejira has been a children’s and adolescents’ rights activist and educator for seven years through local labour unions, focusing on the prohibition of illegal child labour and the education of youth about human and workers’ rights. She has also been involved in several projects relating to youth in peacebuilding and reconciliation in the Western Balkans with USAID, the International Republican Institute, United Nations Kosovo Team, and numerous organisations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.
Nejira’s primary research interests are children and labour, political psychology, geopolitics, and public policy.
Mariam Muradyan
Children’s Rights Officer - GC Caucasus
Mariam is in charge of coordinating the children’s rights activities in the Caucasus region based at the Center for European Studies in Yerevan State University (Armenia). Part of these activities include the follow up on the Global Study recommendations and implementation of grant projects on children’s rights.
Mariam’s background is in social work and for several years she worked as a child protection coordinator at World Vision Armenia (2010-2015). She also worked with the Ministry of Healthcare and Global Fund (HIV/AIDs and TB), the Ombudsman Office of Artsakh and in local CSOs in Armenia in the field of human rights, with a special focus on children’s rights.
Mariam is an alumna of the Master’s programme in Human Rights and Democratisation in the Caucasus (2012-2014) and an alumna of College of Europe, Natolin (MA) in 2016-2017. She holds a bachelor degree in philology and social work.
Umme Habiba Fahmina Karim (Fahmina)
Children’s Rights Officer - GC Asia-Pacific
Fahmina is a community-based child protection specialist. She is a human rights researcher and activist on children’s rights with specific focus on migration with over fifteen years of experience. She has worked on research projects focusing on rights mapping of children on the move (forced migration and labor migration) through reviewing domestic legal framework of various countries; projects on research ethics and academic research with and for children.
Fahmina has hands-on field experience working directly with displaced children while serving with United Nations, INGOs and NGOs and academia in varies countries in Asia. She also has programming experience of implementing child rights projects, monitoring and coordinating local NGOs and Civil Society Organizations. Fahmina has specialized training on Best Intertest Assessment (BIA) and Best Interest Determination (BID), gender-based violence and protection need assessment for children in migration. She has received profession training on counseling and interviewing children in distresses. She had served as trainer in various child protection projects.
Fahmina holds a Bachelor and a Master’s degree in International Relations and is currently engaged as PhD candidate at the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies, Mahidol University Thailand. Her thesis focuses on human rights to education of refugee and stateless children.
WHAT TO READ
Venice Statement: Reconceptualising Exile for Human Rights Defenders at Risk
Interview with Sima Samar, 2012 Right Livelihood Laureate
The Taliban Rule and the Radicalisation of Education in Afghanistan
