Muna Baig is the Pakistan Project Director at BHRC. She has an academic and professional background in human rights, corporate accountability, transitional justice and humanitarian affairs. She has been part of an OMCT Working Group on Women and Torture in Asia that addressed a protection gap in Asia on the subject. Muna lectures in an annual South Asian course on Women, Peace and Security for university students across South Asia and teaches transitional justice and human rights at a leading law school in Lahore as adjunct faculty. Previously, she led the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Pakistan’s oldest NGO focusing on human rights and democratic development, as its first female director. During this period, she also served as Treasurer of FORUM-ASIA, a leading Asian human rights network.
Prior to her relocation to Pakistan, Muna worked with the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute on strengthening the role and independence of the legal profession and the judiciary as well as focusing on rule of law, fair trial rights and justice sector reform issues across the MENA region. She has also worked in the field to document and refer to the UNHCR, the most vulnerable Syrian and lraqi refugees in need of third-country resettlement. Following her protection experience, she spoke about the crime of forced displacement on BBC Radio Four (you can listen to the podcast here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nrjjp). Muna was selected as a Women in Conflict Fellow with Beyond Borders Scotland in 2021 in recognition of her peacebuilding efforts in armed conflict contexts. Furthermore, Muna has experience in international law-making and humanitarian diplomacy at the Security Council and the Sixth Committee in New York as a member of the ICRC Delegation to the UN. She is a qualified solicitor in England & Wales (currently non-practicing).