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Helena Olsson
Helena has a Master Degree in Political Science with focus on Human Rights, Peace and Democracy from Lund University. She has worked with development, human rights and in the humanitarian field since 2001, for Swedish Embassies/Sida and UNHCR in Central and South America; at Sida Headquarters Humanitarian Team in Stockholm; and subsequently with academic institutions and NHRIs in Sub-Saharan Africa; Middle East and North Africa; and South/Southeast Asia since she joined the Institute in 2010.
Between 2016 and 2018 she led the development and start-up of a new regional Asia team and office in Jakarta, and of regional programmes focusing on human rights and environment/climate change, as well as the integration of human rights into Agenda 2030 plans in the region.
She was also team leader of the thematic focus area People on the Move 2016-2017, and currently leads an internal working group of human rights and local governments.
Afghanistan Programme Team
Helena Olsson
Helena has a Master Degree in Political Science with focus on Human Rights, Peace and Democracy from Lund University. She has worked with development, human rights and in the humanitarian field since 2001, for Swedish Embassies/Sida and UNHCR in Central and South America; at Sida Headquarters Humanitarian Team in Stockholm; and subsequently with academic institutions and NHRIs in Sub-Saharan Africa; Middle East and North Africa; and South/Southeast Asia since she joined the Institute in 2010.
Between 2016 and 2018 she led the development and start-up of a new regional Asia team and office in Jakarta, and of regional programmes focusing on human rights and environment/climate change, as well as the integration of human rights into Agenda 2030 plans in the region.
She was also team leader of the thematic focus area People on the Move 2016-2017, and currently leads an internal working group of human rights and local governments.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett was appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan in April 2022 and had his mandate extended a year this October.
Mr. Bennett has served in Afghanistan on several occasions, playing an important role in in the promotion of transitional justice, child rights, rule of law, rights of people with disabilities and a range of economic, social and cultural rights as well as in the protection of civilians and human rights defenders.
He has been a long-term adviser to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and was in the past Chief of the Human Rights Service with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
He also conducted two missions in Afghanistan (2003-07 and 2018-19) as Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and head of the human rights components of peacekeeping operations. A position which led him to work in Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, and South Sudan.
Prior to joining the United Nations as a consultant on UN human rights assignments in Afghanistan, Myanmar and New York in 2019 Mr. Bennett worked for Amnesty International. He was first Director of its Asia-Pacific Program before becoming head of Amnesty’s United Nations Office in New York.
His other roles include being the Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and head of OHCHR’s office in Nepal as well as Chief of Staff for the UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka and Special Adviser to the Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights in New York.
David Eile
David Eile currently works as a Senior Programme Officer responsible for various projects under RWI’s Europe Office, focusing on different forms of academic cooperation in Europe and Cuba. Since joining RWI in 2006, David worked with various human rights programmes in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. David has an MA in Anthropology from Lund University and is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Uppsala.
Massoud Adrakhsh
Massoud Adrakhsh holds an MA in Politics and Security from the OSCE Academy and has more than five years of experience in project management and research.
Raúl Saucedo
Raúl Saucedo is the Programme Associate at RWI Afghanistan Programme working on training and round table organising for human rights defenders, but also reinforcing the RWI Afghanistan team on communications. Raúl brings over 4 years of international professional experience in project management, communication and events organisation. Prior to joining RWI, he worked in civil society organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, focusing on issues concerning children’s rights and supporting human rights defenders globally. Raúl has a master’s in Innovation, Human Development, and Sustainability from the University of Geneva. Fluent in Spanish, English, and French, he’s currently developing his Swedish language skills.
Zoya Noori
Zoya Noori, Programme Associate, brings over 15 years of experience with international organizations, including the United Nations, and educational institutions in Sweden, Afghanistan, and Denmark. Most recently, she served with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Copenhagen, Denmark. She holds a degree in Teaching, a Master’s in Human Resources Management, and a BA in Social Pedagogy with a focus on child psychology. Zoya will provide dedicated administrative and operational support to our Afghanistan Programme.
Razia Sayad
Razia is currently pursuing a PhD in Law and Legal Studies with a focus on Human Rights and Global Justice at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She also holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Administration and a Bachelor’s degree in Law from the Faculty of Law and Political Science at Kabul University.
Razia is a dedicated human rights lawyer and activist from Afghanistan, with over 17 years of experience in promoting justice, documenting human rights violations, conducting research, and advocating for the rights of vulnerable populations, particularly women and children.
She has worked with various national and international institutions, including the Human Rights Support Directorate of the Ministry of Justice, the Justice Sector Support Program (JSSP), the Law Directorate of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the Rule of Law Project of USAID, and the Civil Society and Human Rights Network in Afghanistan. From 2019 to 2021, she served as the Child Rights Commissioner at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), where she led efforts to promote and protect the rights of children across the country.
Following the events of August 2021, Razia was forced to leave Afghanistan but has continued her work in the advancement of human rights and women’s rights. Since then, she has served as a Consultant with the Asia Pacific Forum (APF), assisting in the resettlement of AIHRC staff into safe countries, as a Sharia Law Specialist with the UN Women’s Afghanistan country office, and as a Consultant with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), contributing to a landmark report on gender-based discrimination in Afghanistan as part of the SR Afghanistan team.
According to Razia, joining RWI presents a unique opportunity for her to combine her practical experience with academic expertise in addressing human rights challenges from theoretical and applied perspectives.
Dhion Gumilang
Dhion Gumilang is an education policy researcher who has extensive experience advising the Indonesian Ministry of Education on national teacher professional development reforms and managing policy coordination nation-wide. His work lies in navigating complex governance structures to improve educational equity and resource allocation in diverse contexts and analyzing the localized political capacities that influence policy outcomes.
Prior to joining RWI, Dhion managed university research grant portfolios and evidence-based education policy development at the Tanoto Foundation and directed crisis response and safeguarding initiatives at Caritas Indonesia. He holds a Master of American Studies from Universitas Gadjah Mada and is also certified in Education on Social Justice from Ateneo de Cagayan.
He is also a Brazillian Jiujitsu practitioner on weekends. He views human rights advocacy much like the “human chess” of BJJ; a discipline where technical strategy, calm under pressure, and the resilience to navigate complex maneuvers are the keys to overcoming the most difficult systemic challenges.
Lina Rachmawati
Lina Rachmawati has been working in development project for more than two decades mostly in operational and administrative departments. Lina first joined RWI in 2017, where she worked as a Senior Programme Associate for Regional Asia Pacific Programme.
After gaining additional experience at Internews for STRIDES Project, a project that supports environmental reporting on infrastructure development and its impacts and funded by US Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), Lina returns to RWI for the Afghanistan Programme to support to Afghan women scholars studying at Indonesian universities with fresh insights and renewed enthusiasm.
In her spare time, Lina enjoys cooking and experimenting with new recipes, cuisines, or flavours.
Nazi Karim
Nazi Karim is a research fellow with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, conducting research on women’s access to the health system in Afghanistan. She is also a final-year PhD student at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her thesis explores the violence of everyday life, from direct and indirect violence to the embodied and invisible gendered experience of violence, with a specific ethnographic focus on current experiences of Afghanistani women under the Taliban regime. Prior to this, Karim has conducted ethnographic research with street working children of Kabul in Afghanistan and has also served as a Lecturer at Gawharshad University. Her journey as a researcher and academic is inspired by her lived experience in Afghanistan alongside years of working with women and children of Afghanistan in humanitarian fields within war and conflict zones.
Lutforahman Saeed
Dr. Lutforahman Saeed is a research fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, where he conducts research on Taliban laws through the lens of the higher objectives of Islamic law (Maqasid al-Shari’ah). He previously served as a faculty member at the Faculty of Islamic Studies (Sharia) at Kabul University (KU), where he taught for over 27 years. Dr. Saeed earned his B.A. in Islamic Studies from Kabul University in 1991, followed by an LL.M. from the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle in 2010. He earned his Ph.D. summa cum laude in Islamic Law and Human Rights from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Germany, in 2020. His doctoral dissertation received the STAEDTLER Foundation’s Award for Outstanding Dissertation in 2020. Dr. Saeed’s research mainly focuses on Islamic law, Islamic studies, and the intersection of custom and human rights, with an emphasis on Afghanistan. His scholarly work includes several articles in national and international academic journals as well as his 2022 monograph, Islam, Custom, and Human Rights in Afghanistan. He was also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Afghan Legal Studies from 2017 to 2022. Through scholarly analysis and engagement with current legal discourse, he aims to amplify critical perspectives on women’s rights in Afghanistan today.
In addition to his academic endeavors, Dr. Saeed has held several significant public and institutional roles. He served as a member and vice president of the Independent Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution (ICOIC) for four years. He has also served as a consultant on several Afghanistan-related projects at the CMI research center in Bergen, Norway, and at the Max-Planck Foundation in Heidelberg, Germany. Recently, he has served as a visiting scholar at the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) at the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, where he taught Islamic Law.
Manizha Ashna
Manizha Ashna is a physician and global health researcher whose work explores the intersections of gender, health, and human rights in conflict-affected and low-resource settings. She is currently a Research Fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, where her research examines Afghan women’s lived experiences under Taliban restrictions, with a particular focus on health rights and gender-based inequalities.
Manizha has extensive experience in health research, monitoring and evaluation, and program implementation. She previously served as National Gender Officer with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Afghanistan, where her work focused on gender mainstreaming in health and emergency settings. She has also worked with Jhpiego, a global health affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, contributing to initiatives aimed at improving the quality of health services in low-resource contexts. In addition, she has held consultancy roles with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), supporting health projects in Afghanistan and the Republic of the Congo.
Manizha holds a Doctor of Medicine (MD) from Balkh University and a Master of Science (MSc) in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences from the University of Ottawa, Canada. She is currently completing her PhD in Population Health at the University of Ottawa.
Omar Sadr
Dr. Omar Sadr is a political scientist with over a decade of experience in academia and think tanks. He is a research fellow at the Raoul Wellenburgh Institute for Human Rights. He is also the founding editor-in-chief and host of Negotiating Ideas, an online magazine and podcast on democracy and pluralism. Previously, he worked as a research scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, an affiliate scholar at Princeton University, and as an assistant professor of political science at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF). His primary research interests include the political theory of pluralism, governance, human rights, civil resistance, and political Islam. Dr. Sadr has made significant contributions to his field. His book, Negotiating Cultural Diversity in Afghanistan, which won a 2022 book prize for Best Book in Social Science from the Central Eurasian Studies Society, examines the challenges to peaceful coexistence in a pluralistic society and develops a political theory of governance of diversity. Dr. Sadr holds a Ph.D. (2018) from South Asian University (SAU), a university established by the SAARC nations. His current research examines the contestation between liberalism, Islamism, and customary values in the third republic of Afghanistan (2001-2021) and investigates authority, legitimacy, and resistance under Taliban rule.
Sadr’s research has been supported by numerous fellowships, including Acton Institute’s Collins Center for Abrahamic Heritage, Princeton University’s Afghanistan Policy Lab (APL), Princeton University’s Afghanistan Policy Lab, American Institute of Afghanistan Studies (AIAS)’s John F. Richards Fellowship, MESA Global Academy at the Middle East Studies Association, the Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) at the Institute of International Education (IIE), and the CAMCA at the Rumsfeld Foundation and Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. He is also a member of the New University in Exile Consortium at The New School in New York.
The programme is financially supported by:
