Jalila Haider, a lawyer and human rights activist from Pakistan’s Hazara community, has won the 2026 Right Livelihood Award, a prize widely known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.”
The Right Livelihood Foundation, based in Sweden, announced on Wednesday, September 30, that it was honoring Haider for confronting ethnic, state, and patriarchal oppression and as the first woman lawyer from Pakistan’s Hazara community. The jury described her as inspired by the belief that no human being is “illegal.”
In 2018, following a wave of targeted killings of Hazaras in Quetta, Haider led a seven-day hunger strike. According to the foundation, the protest resulted in a meeting between the then-army chief of Pakistan and Hazara women, as well as his commitment to protecting the community.
Alongside her activism, she works as a lawyer defending minorities, refugees, and human rights defenders in Balochistan. Her law office has helped restore freedom of movement to more than 600 political activists and human rights defenders. Through the organization “We the Humans,” she has also helped more than 400 widows of victims of terrorism achieve financial independence.
Haider is a co-founder of the Women’s Democratic Front and played a role in organizing the first women’s march in Balochistan. Despite arrests, online harassment, and death threats, she has continued her activities.
The other three winners this year are the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, the Rural Women’s Assembly in Southern Africa, and Timnit Gebru, a researcher in AI ethics. The award ceremony will be held on December 1 in Stockholm.
The Right Livelihood Award has been presented since 1980 and has so far had 207 laureates from 82 countries.
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