Pakistani human rights lawyer and activist Jalila Haider has been named one of four recipients of the 2026 Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.”
The Sweden-based Right Livelihood Foundation honoured Haider for breaking barriers as the first female lawyer from Pakistan’s Hazara community and for challenging ethnic, state and patriarchal persecution.
Haider has spent more than a decade providing legal assistance to vulnerable communities, including ethnic and religious minorities, refugees, women and human rights defenders. Her law firm has handled more than 7,000 cases, according to the foundation.
She also gained international attention in 2018 after leading a seven-day hunger strike against targeted killings of members of the Hazara community. The protest led to direct talks between Hazara women and Pakistan’s army chief.
The other 2026 laureates are US artificial-intelligence researcher Timnit Gebru, the Rural Women’s Assembly, a network representing small-scale farmers across Southern Africa, and the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association.
The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 and recognises people and organisations working toward social, environmental and human-rights causes. The four 2026 laureates will be honoured at an award ceremony in Stockholm on December 1.
