Mozn Hassan

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Mozn Hassan (born 1979) is an Egyptian women's rights campaigner and the founder and executive director of Nazra for Feminist Studies. She took part in the 2011 Egyptian revolution and helped women who were sexually assaulted. She has worked to change Egypt’s Constitution and sexual crime laws to protect women. In 2013 she received the Charlotte Bunch Human Rights Award from the Global Fund for Women, and in 2016 she and Nazra won the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the alternative Nobel Peace Prize.

Hassan was born in Saudi Arabia to Egyptian parents. Her father worked at a university and her mother was an academic. She wore a veil from age 10 in Saudi Arabia until the family returned to Egypt when she was 14. She studied civil society and human rights at Cairo University and earned a master’s in international human rights from the American University in Cairo. Hassan says her mother inspired her to become a feminist.

In 2007 she started Nazra for Feminist Studies, which documents human rights abuses and supports women. Nazra helped during the 2011 protests at Tahrir Square and coordinated responses to sexual assaults. It also helped establish a bread-sellers union in Suez that year. Since 2012 Nazra has relocated 12 rape survivors and supported many women activists. The organization has provided medical and psychological help to more than 60 victims and legal advice to more than 100 women.

Nazra pushed for changes in the 2014 Egyptian Constitution to protect women’s rights, created laws against sexual harassment, and expanded protections for sexual crimes. The group runs an annual “feminist school” to teach young people about gender issues and mentors young women in politics. It supported 16 female candidates in 2011-12 elections (one elected) and five in 2015 (one elected). Nazra also produced a play, a comic book, and an all-girls music group. Today Nazra has about 20 staff members and works with 12 feminist groups across Egypt.

Hassan also founded Women Human Rights Defenders in the Middle East and North Africa and helped start the Caucus for Women Politicians in the Arab Region in 2016.

She has faced legal challenges in Egypt. She was questioned by police while speaking at the United Nations in 2016, and she was charged under a law banning foreign funding to Egyptian NGOs, which carries a heavy sentence. In January 2017, the Cairo Criminal Court froze her and Nazra’s assets, and she has been prevented from leaving Egypt by a travel ban. International supporters condemned the actions, saying the investigations threaten feminist work. The travel ban kept her from traveling to Stockholm to collect the Right Livelihood Award.