Pakistani human rights lawyer Jalila Haider has been named among the recipients of the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the “alternative Nobel,” alongside prominent artificial intelligence researcher Timnit Gebru and two women-led rights groups.
The Sweden-based Right Livelihood Foundation honored Haider for her work in defending human rights and challenging ethnic, state, and patriarchal persecution.
The foundation described her as the first female lawyer from Pakistan’s Hazara community and recognized her efforts to break barriers while advocating for marginalized communities.
US-based artificial intelligence researcher Timnit Gebru was also among this year’s recipients. The jury honored her for challenging the concentration of power in artificial intelligence and promoting digital technology based on justice, lived experience, and human agency.
The Right Livelihood Foundation also recognized the Rural Women’s Assembly, a grassroots movement representing more than 178,000 small-scale farmers across 11 Southern African countries.
The movement was honored for organizing rural women to defend land, seed, and bodily autonomy against corporate and patriarchal pressures.
The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, or GYLA, was also named among the award recipients.
Founded in 1994 by volunteer lawyers, GYLA was described by the jury as Georgia’s oldest and most prominent human rights organization. The foundation also called it the “moral compass of Georgian society.”
The group was recognized for its role in safeguarding Georgian democracy and sustaining civic power amid what the jury described as an autocratic crackdown.
The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 by Swedish-German stamp collector Jakob von Uexkull. He founded the award after selling part of his stamp collection when the foundation behind the Nobel Prizes declined to create new awards in the fields of environment and international development.
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