Samira Koujok
Working with civil society organizations and families of missing persons to enhance their capacity to address the issue of the missing and promote an accountability process in Syria.
Samira Koujok is a human rights researcher from Lebanon who documents and investigates human rights abuses and developments in the MENA region. Most recently, she has been working on the issue of missing persons related to the Syrian conflict and has been tracking the evolution of the conflict since it began in 2011. She works closely with Syrian family associations and civil society organizations to gather evidence and advocate for the rights of missing persons’ families by identifying key community stakeholders and building capacities of local organizations. Samira also develops advocacy campaigns to draw attention to the rule of law and the role of women in the future of Syria. Ultimately, the mission of her work is the adoption of a feminist lens in the investigating of disappearances and promoting of justice in Syria. Previously, Samira worked with the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), which is the only international organization that exclusively focuses on locating and identifying missing persons. Before that, she managed a research program on the oral history of human rights discourse in the Arab world at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs in Beirut. Samira is also the co-author of a chapter on the Political Participation of Women in the Arab world. Samira received her master’s degree in human rights from the University of Essex, and a second master’s degree in public health from the American University of Beirut. Samira was a Hansard Society Scholar in London, where she participated in an internship with the UK’s House of Parliament’s Joint Committee for Human Rights. Samira is an Open Society Foundation Scholarship alumna.
Biography current as of 2019-2020 program year