Two LHR employees on the Mail & Guardian's 2018 List of 200 Young South Africans

 

 

On a yearly basis, the Mail & Guardian publishes a list of 200 exceptional and notable South Africans under the age of 35 in its “200 Young South Africans” list. This year, we are proud as Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) to have two of our colleagues, Carol Mohlala (Media and Communications Manager) and Liesl Muller (Attorney and Head of Statelessness Project) have been featured on this list. 

 

Carol Mohlala (29) successfully utilises the influential power in the art of communication to engage with various social justice issues, including those affecting the LGBTI and other vulnerable communities. Mohlala’s passion for media and communication and the fact that she is rooted in grassroots community struggles sees her using her skills to drive her continued commitment to the effective communication of key messages to the most vulnerable in society in our struggle for social justice.

 

This work lends itself to the betterment of the communities Carol serves through her efforts within the NGO sector as well as her current role as media and communications Manager for Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR). Currently serving her second term as a public representative on the panel of adjudicators at the Press Council, Mohlala has also played a noteworthy role in previous positions held within Media Monitoring Africa and the Save Our SABC (SOS) Coalition — civil society pressure groups that contribute towards highlighting marginalised voices.

 

Liesl Muller (31) heads the Statelessness Project at Lawyers for Human Rights, one of the only projects of its kind in South Africa and the region. The project is geared towards helping people without nationality and therefore without legal identity before the law to obtain recognition of their human rights. Stateless people are people are not recognised as a citizen in any country in the world; a plight Muller considers one of the most horrific human rights abuses of our time as it is key to accessing every other human right.

 

The work she does has been instrumental in attempting to combat statelessness in South Africa. She’s presented cases to the UN Committee on the Rights on the Child and to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. She’s also had her work used in reports by UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the UN Human Rights Council and the high-level panel chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe.