Farida Shaheed

Farida Shaheed, from Pakistan, took office as new Special Rapporteur on the right to education on 1st August 2022. She is a sociologist and the Executive Director of Pakistan’s leading gender justice organization, Shirkat Gah - Women’s Resource Centre. Widely published, and the recipient of several international and national human rights awards, her research and work as development consultant/practitioner have been dedicated to promoting and protecting people’s rights, in particular marginalized groups such as women, persons of non-binary identities, those living with disabilities, religious and ethnic minorities, and the economically marginalized. She is also an independent expert/consultant to numerous U.N., international and bi-lateral development agencies, the government of Pakistan, as well as civil society initiatives, and serves on multiple international and national advisory committees. She is a former member of Pakistan’s National Commission on the Status of Women, and served as the first UN Independent Expert, and then Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights from 2009 to 2015. She has explored issues of education related to, inter alia, children’s rights in the digital world, the impact of advertising in schools, history teaching and the right to scientific education.