Work
Jilani is internationally recognized for her expertise in critical human rights investigations. She started practising law in 1979, when Pakistan was under martial law. In February 1980 with her sister Asma Jahangir, she co-founded Pakistan's first all-female legal aid practice, AGHS Legal Aid Cell (ALAC) in Lahore. Initially the activities were confined to providing legal aid to women, but gradually these activities increased to including legal awareness, education, protection from exploitation, legal research, counseling and providing legal assistance as well. She is also one of the founders of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Women's Action Forum (WAF) (a pressure group established in 1980 campaigning against Pakistan's discriminatory legislation) and also founded Pakistan's first legal aid center in 1986. In addition to providing pro bona legal aid, she has also helped set up a shelter for women fleeing violence and abuse, called Dastak in 1991. In addition to managing a shelter, Dastak also organizes workshops to create awareness of human rights and the protection of women.
A lawyer and civil society activist and active in the movement for peace, human rights and women's rights in Pakistan for the last three decades, she specializes in human rights litigation, and is especially concerned with the human rights of women, children, minorities, bonded and child labour, political and other prisoners. She has conducted several cases which have become landmarks in setting human rights standards in Pakistan. Her battle for the rights of children, especially the protection of child laborers engaged in hazardous work, led to the promulgation an act regulating the employment of children in 1991.
Jilani is also affiliated with the United Nations Center for Human Rights, the Carter Center, and the UN Conference on Women. From 2000 to 2008, she was the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders. In 2006, she was appointed to the UN International Fact-Finding Commission on Darfur, Sudan. She is also a member of the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and Human Rights. In 2009, she was appointed to the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. She is a patron of the Media Legal Defence Initiative. She was the 2008 recipient of the Editor's Award for Outstanding Achievement by The Lawyer Awards.
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