People

Sabrina Mahtani was the OPIA / HRP Wasserstein Fellow for the 2018-2019 year. She is a human rights lawyer from Zambia and the U.K. with over fourteen years’ experience working in the human rights field. She specializes on the rights of women in the criminal justice system in Africa and has prepared cases before domestic, regional, and international courts. Mahtani holds a B.A. in Law and History from University College London and an LL.M. from New York University.

Since 2014, she has worked as a researcher at Amnesty International, leading the organization’s research and advocacy work on Anglophone West Africa. She is currently working on the transitional justice and accountability process. Mahtani is also the founder of the award winning NGO, AdvocAid, which provides access to justice, education, and empowerment for women involved in the criminal justice system in Sierra Leone. She has previously worked at the Special Court for Sierra Leone and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Mahtani was awarded  the Amnesty International Gender Defender award, a Vital Voices Lead Fellowship, and the Trainee Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year award at the Law Society Junior Lawyers Awards.

At HRP, Mahtani researched African jurisprudence on legal defenses for women who have killed their domestic abusers after prolonged periods of abuse.