Farida Deif

Farida Deif is the Canada Director at Human Rights Watch. Based in Toronto, she monitors human rights abuses in Canada and advocates for a rights-respecting Canadian foreign policy. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Deif worked at the United Nations with UNICEF, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and UN Women where she recently served as the Deputy Manager of the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women.  She is a gender-based violence expert with over 13 years of experience in both documenting violence against women and girls as a researcher and in developing and supporting targeted programs to address these abuses as a development practitioner.  From 2003-2008, she was the Middle East and North Africa Researcher in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, where she researched and wrote on a range of issues from the arbitrary detention of women and girls to gender-related killings. She participated in Human Rights Watch’s first fact-finding missions to Libya and Saudi Arabia and has published extensively on human rights abuses across the region. She holds a graduate degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and obtained an undergraduate degree from Carleton University in Ottawa.  She speaks Arabic, English, and French.