Sherizaan Minwalla, Esq.
Ms. Minwalla is a human right lawyer who is currently the Director of Legal and Social Services at the Tahirih Justice Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to assisting women and girls fleeing gender-based violence. She spent four years living and working in Iraq where she ran legal and social protection programs as well as mental health programs for street children, juveniles in the criminal justice system and victims of torture, gender-based violence and human trafficking. As the Iraq Country Director for Heartland Alliance, Ms. Minwalla oversaw the re-opening of the Baghdad Street Children’s Center that provides a safe place for children orphaned and affected by war.
Prior to her work in Iraq, Ms. Minwalla worked in Chicago, Illinois for the National Immigrant Justice Center, a program of Heartland Alliance, where she assisted immigrant survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault to legalize their immigration status in the US. She is a graduate of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, and obtained a Masters in Applied Sociology from Loyola University Chicago.
She is the 2004 recipient of the Kimball R. & Karen Gatsis Anderson Public Interest Fellowship through the Chicago Bar Foundation, and the 2005 recipient of the Honorable Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Public Interest Award through the Chicago-Kent College of Law in recognition of her public interest leadership.