Human rights lawyer and activist Jalila Haider on Wednesday received the 2026 Right Livelihood Award, which has also been dubbed the “Alternative Nobel Prize”.
The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980, when Swedish-German stamp collector Jakob von Uexkull sold part of his collection to fund it, after the foundation behind the Nobel Prizes refused to create new awards in the fields of environmental protection and international development.
According to a press release from the Sweden-based Right Livelihood Foundation, Jalila received the award “for breaking barriers, as the first female lawyer from her Hazara community, to challenge ethnic, state and patriarchal persecution, guided by the conviction that no human being is illegal”.
Read: The travails of the Hazara community
The press release noted that the award goes to "women and women-led organisations confronting the world’s most entrenched power structures: authoritarian rule, patriarchal violence, and unchecked AI development".
The 2026 @RightLivelihood Award goes to women and women-led organisations challenging entrenched power structures:
🏆 Jalila Haider @Advjalila
🏆 Rural Women's Assembly @womensassembly
🏆 Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association @GYLA_CSO
🏆 Timnit Gebru @timnitGebru pic.twitter.com/4v29s5Y5au
— Right Livelihood (@rightlivelihood) September 30, 2026
The foundation's website noted that Jalila was a Hazara human rights lawyer and activist protecting Pakistan’s most vulnerable communities against state repression, patriarchal norms and ethnic violence, adding that in 2018, she led a seven-day hunger strike against the targeted killing of Hazaras that forced the army chief to negotiate directly with Hazara women, resulting in a sustained decrease in attacks against the community.
Right Livelihood Foundation said that Jalila was a founding member of the Women’s Democratic Front (WDF) and helped pioneer Balochistan’s first Women’s March, a street mobilisation that sparked discussions on feminism across the deeply patriarchal region, further adding that her organisation “We the Humans” had also helped over 400 widows of terrorism victims gain financial independence.
Read More: Feminism in the context of digital media
🧵 She's the first female Hazara lawyer in her community's history — and for over a decade she's defended the people her country tries hardest to erase.
Meet @Advjalila, a 2026 @RightLivelihood Laureate from Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/dfDrVuvUBw
— Right Livelihood (@rightlivelihood) September 30, 2026
It added that by "combining legal work with street activism and community empowerment", Jalila had "secured justice for thousands targeted or ignored by those in power, specifically ethnic, gender and religious minorities, as well as refugees", further noting that her law firm had also helped restore freedom of movement for more than 600 political activists and human rights defenders.
According to the press release, "for over 45 years, the Right Livelihood Award has honoured and supported courageous people leading the way to a just, peaceful and sustainable world for all".
A prominent US artificial intelligence researcher and two women-led rights groups were also recognised.
The jury said in a statement it had chosen US artificial intelligence researcher Timnit Gebru “for challenging concentrated power in artificial intelligence and pioneering digital technology rooted in justice, lived experience and human agency”.
Gebru is known for her work examining how biases influence AI, and in 2017, Gebru co-founded Black in AI.
The foundation also gave the nod to the Rural Women’s Assembly — a grassroots movement of more than 178,000 small-scale farmers across 11 Southern African nations.
The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, which the jury described as “Georgia’s oldest and most prominent human rights organisation”, was also honoured.
