Heather Barr is the interim co-director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. She has done research in countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea, on issues including child marriage, girls’ education, violence against women, refugee and prisoners’ rights, and trafficking.
She joined Human Rights Watch in 2011 as the Afghanistan researcher, after working for the United Nations in Afghanistan and Burundi. After law school she litigated for discharge planning for prisoners with psychosocial disabilities in New York City, and founded an alternative-to-incarceration program. Before law school, she worked with homeless women. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics, Columbia Law School, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice.