2022 Human Rights Fellowship Conference Program

Human Rights Fellowship Conference

October 14, 2022

Panel Details:

Panel One: Gender and Human Rights in Times of Crises

Reproductive Health in a State of Crisis (Bhavya Joshi)

Emerging Risks in Online Sexual and Gender Based Violence (Anthony Ghaly)

Abuse of Kenyan Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia (Kenneth Ng'etich)

A Shadow Pandemic: Gender-based violence in East Jerusalem (Wafa Alawi)

Panel Two: Precarity and Possibility Under Neo-Liberalism

Indigenous Voices of #LandBack Movement in El Salvador (Violet Barton)

A Roof Over Human Rights: Housing From a Human Rights Perspective (Eunchong Cho)

Re centering Disability Justice in the Age of Pandemics, State Violence, and Human

Rights (Adésẹwà Adésínà)

Measuring Standards of Juvenile Justice in Palestine (Makak Afaneh)

Panel Three: Structural Exclusion and Institutionalization of Marginalized Communities in the U.S.

The Death Penalty in Texas (Caroline Lester)

Compassionate Release in California: Structural Impossibilities to Freedom for Disabled and Terminally Ill People (Riya Desai)

Occupational Licensing Regulations as a Barrier to Economic Freedom for the Formerly Incarcerated (Francis Santos)

Children's Rights as Human Rights: The Foster Youth Movement in the U.S. (Anna Judson)

Keynote Speaker: Nazineen Kandahari, MS

From her life experiences as an Afghan asylee, Nazineen Kandahari developed her commitment to promoting people’s agency. She attended UC Berkeley with the goal of becoming a physician, and discovered her desire to make broader change through research. Nazineen is now in her final year of training at the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program and the Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved, through which she competed a Master of Science about the health inequities of Middle Eastern immigrants. Nazineen centers her research, public health work, and community service on health and educational equity, community engagement, and immigrant health

She has conducted years of research across the bench to bedside spectrum at UC Berkeley, UCSF, Kaiser Permanente, Highland Hospital, and Dillin Lab of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 2020, Nazineen received the Human Rights Center and Albert Schweitzer Fellowships for a novel project elevating traditional healing practices to promote health and healthcare access among Afghan refugees Through her work she founded and now directs a public health initiative for forcibly displaced Afghan immigrants by the name of Afghan Clinic. She has been invited to speak at multiple institutions, including Baylor and UCSF medical schools, and on the NPR podcast Our Body Politic.

Adésẹwà Adésínà

MDP, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley Physically Challenged Empowerment Initiatives

Lagos, Nigeria

Adésẹwà investigated the resourceful ways that slum dwellers living with disabilities create informal networks and infrastructures to increase their access to services within their communities. They also identified how increased state surveillance, criminalization, and state violence frustrates meaningful legislative attempts at improving disability accessibility. The crux of the project is about building solidarity with people living with disabilities, and facilitating the rethinking of ableist beliefs by non disabled people. Adésẹwà is developing an advocacy report that offers approaches, strategies and testimonies from slum dwellers living with disabilities on how they have creatively emerged social and communal networks to meet their accessibility needs in the face of dire neglect.

Anna Judson

JD, School of Law, UC Berkeley

National Foster Youth Institute, Washington DC

Anna conducted federal child welfare policy research, helped with political mobilization and organization, and supported the National Foster Youth Institute’s (NYFI) incoming congressional delegates. NYFI is a nonprofit committed to empowering current and former foster youth to lead public policy conversations with politicians, state governments, and other child-welfare stakeholders This summer, Anna worked closely with members of Congress and the U.S. Senate to bring awareness, facilitate conversations, and introduce legislation about five crucial policy topics. Anna also represented NFYI at the United Nations’ 27th Youth Assembly, which brought young leaders from around the world to dialogue, educate, and strategize on advancing youth rights internationally

OUR FELLOWS

Anthony Ghaly

JD, School of Law, UC Berkeley WITNESS, New York

Anthony joined WITNESS this summer as a legal intern for the Technology, Threats, and Opportunities team. The team addresses new issues facing human rights documentation and advocacy related to the proliferation of digital technologies. Anthony worked under team leader Raquel Vazquez Llorente to provide legal support on matters related to international human rights law and international criminal justice This included the harms of sexual and gender based violence in the metaverse.

Bhavya Joshi

DrPH, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley

Roda - Parents in Action, Croatia

Bhavya visited refugee accommodations in Croatia to understand the unmet reproductive health needs of Ukrainian women refugees arriving in Croatia. Working with Roda, she met with organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross & Crescent, Doctors of the World, Ombudsperson Office of Gender Equality, and other human rights organizations in Croatia. With their expertise, Bhavya worked to understand the barriers faced by Ukrainian women refugees seeking access to reproductive health services since February 2022. She also worked on a submission to the United Nations Special Procedures on the case of a Croatian woman pregnant with a terminally ill fetus who was denied access to legal abortion in Croatia. Bhavya aims to advocate for reproductive rights in times of compounded crisis using international women ' s human rights mechanisms

OUR FELLOWS

Caroline Lester

JD, School of Law, UC Berkeley

Regional Public Defenders for Capital Crimes, Texas Caroline completed a legal internship with the Regional Public Defenders for Capital Cases She worked on trial level capital cases in rural counties in Texas Caroline assisted the legal teams with case research, defendant interviews, and sentencing hearings.

Eunchong Cho PhD, Sociology, UC San Diego

Minsnail Union, South Korea

Eunchong studied human rights centered approaches to youth housing rights in South Korea. His research interests include how local activists incorporate international human rights norms into their local activism. He worked with Minsnail Union, a housing rights organization that advocates for young people's housing rights by addressing structural problems in Korean society These include unfair laws against tenants, generational economic inequality, and discrimination against young people, women, LGBTQ people, and other minorities. Eunchong’s activities for Minsnail Union included interviewing people experiencing housing difficulties, writing articles for press releases, organizing public discussions, analyzing data, and taking part in collective actions.

FELLOWS

Francis Santos

JD, School of Law, UC Berkeley ACLU Racial Justice Program, New York

Francis worked for the ACLU's Racial Justice Program (RJP) this summer. RJP focuses on upholding racial equality and combating racism through litigation, community organizing and training, legislative initiatives, and public education to address a broad spectrum of issues that disproportionately negatively affect people of color The program focuses specifically on issues of racial equality in the areas of criminal justice, economic justice, education, affirmative action, and American Indian rights. Francis' research focused on the discrimination against formerly incarcerated people in local and national occupational licensing regulations.

Kenneth Ng'etich

MJ Graduate, Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley Muslims for Human Rights, Kenya

Kenneth is an investigative journalist that worked in Kenya for The Star and Standard Media Group, as well as with Amnesty International, before coming to UC Berkeley for his Master's studies He worked on a project that investigates the plight of Kenyan workers in Saudi Arabia He looked into allegations of abuse, including the reports of 89 Kenyans, most of them female domestic workers, who died under mysterious circumstances in Saudi Arabia between 2019 and 2022.

OUR FELLOWS

Malak Afaneh

JD, School of Law, UC Berkeley

The International Legal Foundation, Ramallah Malak worked as a global legal intern with the International Legal Foundation’s West Bank Team to provide free holistic legal aid for children held in pre trial detention. She conducted legal research on measures of juvenile justice globally, the utilization of holistic aid and trauma informed strategies in the field of juvenile justice, and analyzed litigation strategies aligned with both customary international law and systems of justice in the MENA region.

Riya Desai

MD/MS, Joint Medical Program

UC Berkeley & UC San Francisco

Families for Justice Reform (FAMM), California

Riya worked with FAMM, a national advocacy organization focused on criminal justice reform, to conduct research on expanding compassionate release for terminally ill and disabled people incarcerated in California. She analyzed California’s compassionate release data, qualitatively explored barriers and facilitators to compassionate release, and supported legislative advocacy for AB 960 to expand eligibility for compassionate releases and ensure that courts can review eligible compassionate release requests in a timely manner.

FELLOWS

Violet Barton

Ph.D., Interdisciplinary Humanities, UC Merced Asociación de Comunidades Indígenas de El Salvador

El Salvador

Violet supported the work of Nahua Pipil leaders to create a digital archive that documents the processes of establishing a national Indigenous forum to advocate for the ratification of Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization, in El Salvador Convention 169 was established by the 1989 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, codifying the right to self determination within nation states. It also acts as a framework for the protection of Indigenous people and communities under international law.

Wafa Alawi

MPH, School of Public Health and Global Health & Environment Women's Center Shu'fat Camp, Palestine

Wafa spent her summer working on community facing projects with refugee populations in Shu’fat camp, East Jerusalem She prepared and distributed meals to vulnerable children, piloted a dual language immersion and cultural exchange program, produced WASH materials to promote good hygiene practices, and launched an external facing website for her partner organization. She learned of the significant rise in gender based violence (GBV) cases in the camp during the COVID 19 pandemic, and submitted a concept note to address GBV in this setting

Once funding is secured, her hope is to launch a gender based violence campaign via social media, set up a crisis hotline, and host support groups led by community leaders.

Thank You!

The student human rights fellowship program is the longest—running program at the Human Rights Center. We'd like to extend our deepest gratitude to Professor Carolyn (Patty) Blum and Dr. Thomas J. White for making this exceptional opportunity possible.