Human Rights Award success
Professor Sharon Pickering with her Human Rights Media Award
Championing the human rights of asylum seekers has seen a Monash University researcher awarded an Australian Human Rights Commission Human Rights Award.
Professor Sharon Pickering from the School of Political and Social Inquiry, along with on-line opinion outlet The Conversation's Asylum Seeker Expert Panel, have won a Human Rights Media Award for their series on asylum seekers.
The Awards, presented on Monday night, honour the inspiring contributions nominees have made to the protection and promotion of human rights.
Following two boat tragedies off Christmas Island in June 2012, The Conversation published an article, Six issues missing from the Asylum seeker debate, by Professor Pickering. The Conversation then asked her to lead an expert panel of academics.
Under the leadership of Professor Pickering, the Expert Panel published a series of 14 articles on The Conversation between June and August 2012. The articles exposed the realities of asylum seeker issues and advocated for a human rights based response – two of which highlighted failure of the Government's Houston Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers to consider humanitarian responses.
“In winning this award, I feel very honoured to have been recognised for my work in the area of asylum seekers’ human rights,” Professor Pickering said.
“I am very passionate about human rights and to have a medium such as The Conversation to publish my work has helped publicise the importance of high quality research on issues of border control and asylum issues in Australia.”