Magdalena Smieszek

Bio

Magdalena has extensive international experience having held a number of human rights, development and migration-related positions with various organizations. Magdalena has focused on women’s human rights, addressing gender-based violence in particular. Most recently, she was the Head of Field Office/ Protection Officer with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Lebanon, where she aimed to ensure protection of internally displaced persons.

Previously, Magdalena worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ghana on the governance, human rights and gender programmes. Prior to this, she was the Community Development Officer with UNHCR in Yemen, addressing protection issues of refugees and asylum-seekers from the Horn of Africa.

Magdalena gained significant insights into trafficking of women and girls through her work with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, she contributed her knowledge of Gender Law to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Poland. Magdalena had also spent time in India working with an NGO, the Centre for Social Justice, on a project addressing gender-based violence.

Magdalena has a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Calgary, a LL.B from the University of Windsor and a MSt in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford, UK.

Issue of Investigation

As a recipient of the 2008 Gordon Global Fellowship, Magdalena will study polices on human trafficking. Root causes of trafficking include poverty, gender inequality, violence against women and children, and marginalization of vulnerable groups such as migrants, minorities, and refugees. The solutions are related to achieving adequate development and human rights policies on a global scale. As such, Magdalena will focus on select policies that respond or fail to respond to trafficking, focusing on its root causes in particular.