Maria Lisityna (2006 - 2007)

Kyrgyzstan

"Human rights is Masha's life's work," writes a colleague, "In the truest sense of the term."

After the Sauvé Scholarship Masha started to work as a consultant with Human Rights Watch, based in Bishkek for the summer before starting a four-month Yale World Fellows program. She is now a researcher with Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division in New York and she writes: “The main focus of my work is now human rights in Central Asia, in particular, in Turkmenistan and rights of labour migrants in Russia.”

During her time as a Sauvé Scholar, she focused on constitutional law and worked as a research assistant for the McGill Expert Panel on developing a response to the phenomenon of Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPPs). The report of the expert panel was widely discussed in Canada and served as a basis for the recently adopted bill on response to SLAPPs.

Masha earned a BA in French from Kyrgyz National State University, and graduated from the law school of the Kyrgyz-Russian Academy of Education. A leading human rights activist, she founded the Independent Human Rights Group, liaising with the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. One of her many specialties is monitoring human rights in closed institutions, like detention centers, orphanages, and psychiatric hospitals. As a lecturer and trainer in human rights, she traveled throughout the Central Asian region.

Elected to the Constitutional Council of Kyrgyzstan, Masha was instrumental in drafting proposals to amendments to her country's constitution that help protect human rights. In 1995, at the age of 17 she co-founded and became the director of the Youth Human Rights Group in Kyrgyzstan that specialized in child rights, monitoring of custodial institutions, and human rights education; and in 2003, she founded the Independent Human Rights Group that works mostly on freedom of information and strategic litigation).

She is fluent in Russian, English, and French.

Links

• An interview with Maria Lisitsyna (Nov 2007)
• Yale World Fellows Program (2007)
• Researcher at Human Rights Watch who specializes in Central Asian affairs (April 2008)

Country of origin

Kyrgyzstan