Jacqui Hunt

Jacqui Hunt is an established human rights lawyer and has advocated for women’s rights for over twenty years. Previously, as Equality Now’s Global Lead on Ending Sexual Violence, Head of Equality Now’s London Office, and technical legal expert, Jacqui provided strategic guidance and leadership on holding governments to account, under international law, on their commitments to protect women and girls from sexual violence. Jacqui has been with Equality Now since 2003, when she launched the organization’s European headquarters in London.

At Equality Now, Jacqui has spearheaded several successful campaigns, including the creation of a United Nations Working Group to end discrimination against women in law and in practice. During her tenure with Equality Now, Jacqui was seconded to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) for two years to support the International Women’s Commission for a Just and Sustainable Middle East Peace.

She has contributed to many of Equality Now’s pioneering reports, including

• • The World’s Shame – The Global Rape Epidemic: How Laws Around the World are Failing to Protect Women and Girls from Sexual Violence

• • The State We’re In: Ending Sexism in Nationality Laws 

• • Roadblocks to Justice: How the Law Is Failing Survivors of Sexual Violence in Eurasia 

• • Justice Denied: Sexual Violence & Intersectional Discrimination—Barriers to Assessing Justice for Dalit Women and Girls in Haryana, India.

Jacqui’s commentary on sexual violence, nationality rights, sexism and sexist stereotypes, sex discrimination, and gender equality has also featured in Global Citizen, Thomson Reuters Foundation, The Huffington Post, and The Guardian.

Jacqui began her career at Amnesty International; she went on to work in the Amnesty International United Nations Office in New York and in special projects at Amnesty International USA. Before joining Equality Now, she practiced law at Linklaters and for a development finance institution that invests in building businesses and creating jobs in the developing world.

Jacqui holds a BSc (Hons) in Linguistic and International Studies from the University of Surrey, an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and completed her legal studies at the College of Law (now the University of Law), London.

Outside of the office, Jacqui enjoys exploring, hiking in the beautiful countryside, and making a bit of a mess of pottery and woodwork.

She is available for interviews in English.