MA 1998/99

Joanna Ewart-James, Executive Director, Freedom United

I really enjoyed the MA in Human Rights and feel fortunate to have benefited from the grounding it gave me to pursue a fascinating career path. The knowledge I gained has helped me in many ways from working in central government incorporating the Human Rights Act 1998 into asylum policy, to running the Foreign Office's Human Rights Project Fund, to an innovative research project at Goldsmiths College on human rights impact assessments, and managing a multi-million pound international human rights grant portfolio. The breadth of my professional career and rights I've worked on has had me diving back into my books every now and then. Not least when I started focusing on modern slavery almost a decade ago. I hope that the human rights movement will continue to give more attention to tackling modern slavery and not just leave this enormous challenge to the labour rights movement. For me it is the human rights lens that I look through, established by completing this MA, that has me so committed to this cause!