Rising Talents Network

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Alejandra Ancheita

The Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Project (ProDESC)

Founder and Executive Director at ProDESC

Description

Alejandra Ancheita - founder and Executive Director of the Mexico City-based NGO ProDESC - is a Mexican lawyer and activist, leader of the human rights’ movement for migrants, workers, and indigenous communities in her native country. Since founding ProDESC in 2005, Alejandra Ancheita and her team have run strategic campaigns aimed to protect the economic, social, and cultural rights of Mexico’s most marginalized people. ProDESC’s work is guided by her innovative vision of integrated approach, which combines community education and organizing; corporate research; human rights litigation; and policy advocacy; thereby bringing real structural change. Among her most notable accomplishments in ProDESC, she achieved unprecedented results to establish accountability mechanisms for transnational corporations in Mexico. Alejandra Ancheita is a leading Latin American voice in the human rights movement. She has participated in various international forums, such as the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society and the OECD Annual Meeting of National Contact Points, as well as argued cases before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and the national courts. Alejandra Ancheita is the 2014 Laureate of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. In 2014, she also received the Omecíhuatl medal from the Women’s Institute in Mexico City in recognition of her important contributions to women human rights. The next year, the Mexican Senate acknowledged Alejandra prominent work in defense of workers, migrants, indigenous and agrarian communities. More recently, in 2019, she was given a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the Université Paris Nanterre, becoming the first Mexican women to be honored with the distinction. She has a Bachelor of Laws from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco in Mexico City and a Master degree in International Law and Justice from the Fordham University.
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