Farah

Lebanon, Autumn 2025

Farah Abou El Sel is a Lebanese human rights defender and practitioner whose work bridges humanitarian action, advocacy, and strategic support to human rights movements across the Middle East and North Africa. Over the past decade, she has collaborated with local and international organizations to strengthen civic space, enhance protection mechanisms for human rights defenders, advance accountability and transitional justice, and promote the rights and rehabilitation of victims of torture and conflict-related abuses.

Farah has held leadership and advisory roles with a range of civil society organizations in the MENA region, coordinating regional strategies and donor relations with both local and international partners. Her efforts focus on amplifying survivor voices and ensuring that those most affected by violations are at the center of justice and redress processes. She integrates a victim-centered and trauma-informed approach in her work, emphasizing community participation and ensuring that marginalized groups—including detainees, refugees, and survivors of gender-based violence—receive meaningful and sustained support. Deeply rooted in strategic advocacy and civic space protection, Farah works to develop sustainable solutions for human rights defenders and civil society actors under threat, fostering an enabling environment where they can continue their vital work without fear of persecution.

Farah’s commitment to advancing human rights is deeply personal. Living and working in conflict-affected areas, and later experiencing the 2023 earthquake in Gaziantep-Turkey, profoundly shaped her understanding of vulnerability, resilience, and the interconnectedness of human suffering. These experiences reinforced her belief that solidarity is not only about empathy, but about action—and that promoting human rights must transcend borders. They also deepened her conviction that effective protection for human rights defenders must move beyond emergency response toward sustainable, community-driven systems of care and solidarity.

As a Fellow at the Centre for Applied Human Rights, Farah is developing an initiative that explores long-term and transformative protection strategies for human rights defenders in exile and at risk. Her project advocates for protection models that prioritize local agency, survivor participation, and collaboration between civil society and international actors. Through her work, Farah envisions fostering a region where human rights work is met with protection and support, not persecution.