July 29th, 2008
Inspiring Women: Navanethem Pillay
Navanethem Pillay has recently made the news, again, after being appointed the United Nation’s new High Commissioner for Human Rights. Prior to this challenging, and worthwhile, appointment, Ms Pillay was already making strides in human rights and garnering attention (sometimes unwanted) for her causes. She is an exceptionally courageous, determined and up-standing woman and someone you can not help but admire.
Born in Durban, South Africa in 1941, Ms Pillay experienced much of the injustices of the Apartheid era. After gaining her law degree, she still could not practice law with a firm as none would hire her due to her skin colour. This prompted her to establish her own law practice and in doing so, she became the first woman law firm owner in the Natal province. During her 28 years with her firm she exposed much of the horrorfic treatment and conditions of political detainees. Back in those days, it was common for even minor actions to get you stamped as a political “concern” and held without any reason or recourse. If you were lucky, you were released…eventually. Due to her fighting for the basic legal rights of all political detainees, including Mandela Nelson, Ms Pillay found herself under constant surveillance by the security police. She was not deterred though and did much to help fight the Apartheid injustices.
In 1994 she was appointed the first non-white woman on South Africa’s High Court. She was shortly recruited to sit as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda where she presided over landmark cases. An important result of which was defining rape as an institutionalised weapon of war and a crime of genocide - sadly, a still occurring form of waging-war in many African countries.
During all this, Ms Pillay also found the time to co-found Equality Now - an organization that works to end violence and discrimination against girls and women around the world.
Before her appointment to the UN, Ms Pillay had been working as a judge at the International Criminal Court. Her new role gives her a superior vantage point to do what she does best - fight for the rights of those who don’t have the voice, or means, to do so themselves. If anyone can bring some closure, and justice, to the on-going situations in Darfur, Zimbabwe and Burma (to name only a few places where human rights are ignored), I hope it is Ms Pillay.
In her own words, Ms Pillay seems to sum-up the expectations of her new role, but also in a way that makes me hope she is the person to fill these shoes.
“This is the only office at the UN to be fiercely uncompromising and independent about human rights standards. The commissioner is the voice of the victim everywhere.”
