Christina Beninger is a Canadian lawyer, researcher and legal consultant with more than 10 years of professional legal, research and management experience in the international law and human rights field. She has specialized expertise in human rights, rule of law, access to justice and gender equality and sexual and gender based violence.
Christina has worked with the United Nations Development Program, the International Development Law Organization and various governmental, non-governmental and community-based organizations in management and legal advisory and research roles. Her in-country experience includes Myanmar, Ghana, Namibia, South Africa, Canada, the United Kingdom and Dominica. Christina is a qualified Canadian barrister and solicitor who served as a judicial law clerk to the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, and she has worked in litigation with an international law firm.
Christina is currently undertaking PhD doctoral research on women’s access to justice, the rule of law and gender-based violence (GBV) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa under a multi-year doctoral fellowship grant of the Government of Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She also holds a Master of Laws degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex (distinction) and a LL.B./J.D. degree from the University of Windsor.
Examples of Christina’s previous work include:
- Design, implementation and management of rule of law and access to justice projects, with focus on women’s access to justice and SGBV, in complex transitional contexts including Myanmar;
- Led development of a series of successful funding proposals for projects on rule of law, women’s access to justice and GBV.
- Lead researcher and author of a national qualitative field study on child abuse and family violence issues inclusive of a desk review and field based empirical data collection with nearly 200 respondents;
- Author of in-depth legal research studies on topics including sexual violence in schools and domestic violence laws in sub-Saharan Africa, published in peer reviewed human rights journals;
- Author of Dominica’s draft National Policy and Action Plan on Juvenile Justice, based on extensive desk review and consultations with key stakeholders;
- Author of a range of public legal awareness and advocacy materials on women’s and children’s rights issues in sub-Saharan Africa;
- Contributing researcher to field-based research studies on access to justice and GBV in various countries and contributing researcher for a comparative multi-country study on harassment and stalking laws in the Commonwealth.
Christina Beninger 