Many of the achievements in the struggle for truth, justice and reparation have been led by victims and survivors. For them, justice is not only tied to conviction and punishment, but it is directly linked to truth and dignity: they need an acknowledgement of the harm done to them. The quest for accountability empowers them and reinforces their role as rights-holders and active agents of their life and future. But can justice and prosecution reconcile large-scale abuses? Are we actively listening to those who suffered them?
Series 5 - Survivor Movements for Justice
Survivor Movements for Justice is the fifth series in the Global Campus “To the Righthouse” podcast programme. It explores the process of empowerment that drives victim- and survivor-led movements for justice, focusing on individuals and organisations responding to various forms of human rights abuse, or injustice. We examine how these issues affect people across different regions and time periods, and how communities mobilise to create change.
Across five episodes, we hear from researchers, advocates, and practitioners—some of whom have experienced injustice firsthand—who share their insights and experiences. They discuss the initiatives they or their organisations are leading to confront violations, support those affected, and demand accountability, ultimately working to end impunity and build more just systems.
Each episode is hosted by a GC Alumnus/Alumna or member of staff. Listen to Thomas Unger, Nataly Herrera, Ashwanee Budoo-Scholtz, Judit Villena Rodó and Adna Mujović as they engage in important conversations with Ram Bhandari, Karen Tucker, Matthew D Brown, Erin Farrell Rosenberg, Maeve O’Rourke, Mary Harney, Ehlimana Memišević and Almasa Salihović.
Episode 5 // Empowering through remembrance
We conclude the series with an episode on memorialization, in particular how memorialization in Bosnia and Herzegovina serves as a form of justice by preserving victims’ humanity, supporting survivors’ voices, resisting genocide denial, and sustaining collective memory when legal justice is incomplete.
is an Associate Professor at the Department of Legal History and Comparative Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Sarajevo. She holds her BA and MA in Law, and PhD in Legal History and Comparative Law. Her major research fields include legal history and genocide studies.
is a child survivor of the Srebrenica genocide, she works as a teacher in Srebrenica, speaks at commemorations worldwide, and helps document survivors’ stories through projects with the Srebrenica Memorial Center and the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo.
is a first-generation Bosnian-American from Chicago. Adna has been shaped by the legacies of the 1990s in BiH and by the struggles of diverse communities around her. She holds postgraduate degrees in Humanitarian Assistance & Crisis Management and Human Rights & Democracy in Southeast Europe (ERMAlumna 2025). Her most recent thesis traces the Srebrenica Memorial Center’s evolution through the eyes of staff, genocide survivors. Her work is committed to those whose identities and livelihoods are under threat.
Episode 4 // Demanding justice
The episode explores how survivors and activists in Ireland confront institutional abuse through memorialization, legal action, education, and movement lawyering to demand justice, preserve truth, and challenge state denial of human rights violations.
is an Associate Professor at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, University of Galway. She is Programme Director of the undergraduate Law and Human Rights degree, and Director of the postgraduate Human Rights Law Clinic at Galway. She is also a voluntary co-director of the Clann Project and a member of the Justice for Magdalenes Research group. Her books include Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury 2021) (co-authored with Claire McGettrick born Lorraine Hughes, Katherine O’Donnell, James M Smith and Mari Steed) and Human Rights and the Care of Older People: Dignity Vulnerability, and the Anti-Torture Norm (OUP 2024, Open Access).
earned her PhD in Human Rights Law from University of Galway in October 2025. Her qualitative research at the Irish Centre for Human Rights examined the emotional impact on LLM students engaged in social justice projects through the Human Rights Law Clinic, focusing on resilience in human rights education.
She holds a BA in Human Ecology and an honorary Master’s in Philosophy from College of the Atlantic, as well as postgraduate degrees in Irish Studies and International Human Rights from the University of Galway.
A lifelong human rights activist, Mary has worked on issues including LGBTQ rights, workers’ rights, and identity rights. She also appears in the 2025 documentary Testimony, which explores the campaign for justice for Irish citizens incarcerated in institutions for unmarried women and their children.
holds a Master of Laws (LLM) and a PhD in Human Rights Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, as well as an LLB in Scots Law from the University of Stirling. Her doctoral research, funded by the Irish Research Council, focused on access to remedies for migrant women survivors of coercive control under the framework of the Istanbul Convention. Judit’s research interests include gender and human rights, critical and feminist legal theories, and clinical legal education.
During her PhD, she was a lecturer and teaching assistant at the University of Galway and Maynooth University (Ireland) where she taught human rights courses and instructed at the Irish Centre for Human Rights Clinic. She has also been a visiting researcher at the Pedro Arrupe Human Rights Institute (Bilbao, Spain), the Istanbul Convention Secretariat at the Council of Europe (Strasbourg, France), and Harvard Law School (Cambridge, US).
Episode 3 // Transforming experiences
This episode showcases how the Mukwege Foundation’s survivor-led Red Line initiative advances a holistic, rights-based approach to conflict-related sexual violence by combining legal accountability, prevention, and survivor-centered support to restore dignity, empower survivors, and strengthen justice beyond courts.
is Adjunct Professor at the University of Cincinnati School of Law and an attorney specializing in international criminal law and reparations, having worked at the ICTY and the International Criminal Court. She is also Senior Legal and Policy Advisor for the Red Lines Initiative, recently initiated by the Mukwege Foundation together with 2018 Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege, which seeks to create an international convention for the elimination of sexual violence as a method of warfare.
is the Deputy Director of the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch. She has worked on different human rights issues across the continent and beyond, with a focus on the African human rights system.
Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, she was the Program Manager of the Master’s in Human Rights and Democratization in Africa at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Human Rights, where she managed 13 African partner universities and was the Africa focal person for the Global Campus of Human Rights’ governing bodies which is composed of more than 100 universities
Episode 2 // Connecting voices
The series continues with an episode that discusses the Quipu Project, which uses storytelling and listening to amplify Peruvian women’s testimonies of forced sterilizations, turning personal experiences into collective memory, recognition, and a broader struggle for justice and dignity beyond victimhood.
is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on the colonial politics of knowledge that shape encounters with Indigenous knowledges, bodies and natures, and the decolonial practices that can reveal and remake them.
is Professor in Latin American History at the University of Bristol, where he has led institutional work in Research Ethics since 2024. He led the MEMPAZ project in Colombia on arts-based resistance to violence and contributed to The Quipu Project on forced sterilizations in Peru.
is a Peruvian lawyer with over 15 years of experience in human rights. Her experience includes work with public and private institutions at national and international levels, with focus on justice and reparations for victims of armed conflict, especially in Peru, as well as leadership in research, advocacy initiatives and consultancy efforts to strengthen human rights protections. Nataly holds a Master’s in Human Rights and Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean from the International Center for Political Studies (CIEP) in Buenos Aires (GC Latin America).
Episode 1 // Solidarity networks
The first episode of this Serie features Thomas Unger and Ram Bhandari discussing how his experience of enforced disappearance in Nepal led him to human rights activism, the power of survivor-led solidarity networks, the global rise of impunity and shrinking civic space, and the work of Inovas in building collective, victim-centered pathways to justice.
is a Nepali human rights defender and academic practitioner with over 20 years of experience in the disappearance, victim movements, survivor-led transitional justice and human rights. He is founder of Network of Families of the Disappeared in Nepal and co-founder of International Network of Victim and Survivor of Serious Human Rights Abuses (INOVAS). Ram currently is a research fellow at Kathmandu University – Nepal Center for Contemporary Studies and Team Lead at the Centre for Human Rights and Victims of Violations (CHRV). Ram serves as chief editor of the monthly newsletter – Survivor’s Record (Nepal) and a regional editor of Journal of Disappearance Studies (Bristol University Press). He is 2011 EMA graduate and a recipient of EMAlumni Award 2021.
is an independent expert on transitional justice (TJ). At Impunity Watch he provides strategic advice on issues of international policy and TJ. He is also advising various other international organisations on TJ matters, including the UN, EU and the Swiss Foreign Ministry. He has been the Co-Director of the Master of Advanced Studies in Transitional Justice, Human Rights and the Rule of Law.
He is the former Senior Adviser to the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence. He worked for many years as a human rights officer within the Austrian Foreign Ministry, as well as a legal system monitor with the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, and as a legal clerk with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Since 2022 he is an associated expert to the Dealing with the Past Program at swisspeace. Thomas is a regular expert lecturer on TJ at the Austrian Centre for Peace.