Laíze Gabriela Benevides

Brazil, CAHR, Autumn 2019

My name is Laíze Gabriela Benevides, I am from northeastern Brazil, I am a popular lawyer, human rights activist and PhD student at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

My story as an activist began in 2007 when, through the student movement, I engaged in the struggle for human rights by the side of social movements. In student activism, I dedicated myself more closely to the debate of critical, emancipatory and socially referenced legal education (which permeates all my professional and academic performance); to gender discussion with the women's sector of the Landless Workers Movement - MST; to human rights education; and to the movement for access to cultural rights.

After finishing law school, I worked as a technical analyst at the Ministry of Culture in the technical cooperation department to elaborate the Municipal Culture Plans in 2012. The following year I moved to Rio de Janeiro, where I worked for 4 years at the Institute of Human Rights Defenders - DDH while pursuing a specialization in Criminal Sciences and a Master's degree in Constitutional Law, doing research on human rights violations in militarily occupied favelas. The research was later published by the largest legal publisher in Brazil.

At DDH, I served as the coordinator of popular human rights education and as the communication coordinator, as part of the support team for social movements and as representative of the Institute on the State Committee for the Prevention and Combat of Torture between 2015 and 2016.

Between 2017 and 2018, I was a member of the human rights advisory team of Deputy Marcelo Freixo. I worked as a popular lawyer at the Rio de Janeiro State Assembly Commission for the Defense of Human Rights and Citizenship in assisting victims of human rights violations, in supporting social movements, and supporting the coordination of the State Committee for the Prevention and Combat of Torture.

In 2019, I was part of the State Representative Monica Francisco's mandate team, comprising the Human Rights Team and the Victims Assistance Team as a popular lawyer, and was also responsible for monitoring the Parliamentary Front in Defense of the Public Defender's Office.