Marieme is a visionary, someone with women’s rights and gender politics written into her DNA. Born in Algiers to a family where politics was an integral part of everyday life, like many politicized young women of her time, she was influenced by Algeria’s war of independence and period of decolonization. However, it was the subsequent challenges to women’s rights posed by religious fundamentalists in Algeria and the rest of the Muslim contexts that coloured her political life the most… READ MORE

Co-founder of the Muslim Women’s Research and Action Forum in Sri Lanka, and one of the original founders of Women Living Under Muslim Laws.  Zackariya has been at the forefront of the struggle for Muslim personal law reforms in Sri Lanka and beyond for decades… READ MORE

Farida Shaheed is the Executive Director of Shirkat Gah – Women’s Resource Centre in Pakistan, that strives to empower women and further a gender-equality social justice agenda. Shaheed is the former UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, and has worked for many years to protect and promote cultural rights by fostering projects designed to support the rights of marginalized sectors, including women and religious and ethnic minorities.